Susan Roebuck

Catherine Cavendish Believes in Ghosts!

2012-02-18T09:51:00.001Z

Those of you who judge a book by its cover will be delving into your pockets to buy this little marvel.

Catherine Cavendish has launched a new book, "The Demons of Cambian Street" published by Etopia Press , and she's here today to talk about paranormal fiction, ghosts and, of course, those Demons.

Sue: Welcome Catherine. I've been fascinated by your recent novels, such as "Cold Revenge" and "In My Lady's Chamber", which are excellent horror reads. I know you also have an interest in history, so what spurred you on to write paranormal stories? Have you changed your genre?

Catherine: Hi Sue. Many thanks for having me and I’m glad you enjoyedmy previous stories. To answer your question, I decided to write paranormalfiction as it is also a great love of mine. I have loved being scared to deathsince I first discovered Dennis Wheatley when I was a child! Then, of course, along came StephenKing and Anne Rice and they sit happily on my bookshelves next to PhilippaGregory and Barbara Erskine (among others too numerous to mention). As forwhether I will write historical fiction again, the answer is that it’s possibleto do both and that’s what I’m doing with my latest work in progress, ‘MissAbigail’s Room’, which is set in Victorian England.

Sue: I love the title! But back to paranormal (and I loved Dennis Wheatley too).You wrote a fascinating blog post about an old haunted asylum in Denbigh, Wales (you can tell from the picture, above, that it's full of things that go bump in the night - and they do!) Tell me, do you believe in ghosts?

Catherine: Oh gosh yes! We live with one in North Wales. Opur flat ishaunted by a friendly female spirit. I have been aware of her moving thingsaorund and have heard her but she has actually spoken to my husband. She nearlyscared him half to death a couple of weeks ago when he heard this voice say‘hello’ and there was no one there. North Wales has ghosts aplenty and Iblogged about one fascinating location quite recently:

Sue: I'd have fainted clean away on the spot. Since we're in the mood, can you give us a scary excerpt from your new book?

Catherine: My latest is called ‘The Demons of Cambian Street’ and has just beenpublished by Etopia Press. The inspiration came from a distinctly creepy andpitch-dark walk-in cupboard on the top landing of our haunted home. It’s sodark in there— and so rambling—that you can’t see how far it extends. The buildingused to be two or three dwellings way back in its 250 year history. It doesn’ttake much imagination to start seeing all sorts of strange things as you peerthrough the old wooden door…

Firstly, here’s theblurb:
Sometimes evil wears a beautiful face...

After her illness, the quiet backwater ofPriory St Michael seemed the ideal place for Stella to recuperate. But in thepeaceful little town, something evil is slumbering, waiting for its chance topossess what it desires. When Stella and her husband move into the long-emptyapartment, they're unaware of what exists in the cupboard upstairs, theentrance to an evil that will threaten both their lives.

Extract:
The soft aroma ofBadedas bath oil pervaded the air and relaxed her senses as Stella Irwin lay backin the fragrant bubbles. Then she was drifting, the warm water bathing andsoothing her, dissolving her fears. She could almost believe there was nothingwrong. That she had imagined it all. Then, without warning, came a thunderouscrash.
Her eyes snapped open.She jerked upright, splashing water onto the floor. “What the hell was that?”She scrambled to her feet. She was out of the bath and wrapped in her towelingrobe in less than a minute. Panting, she opened the bathroom door acrack.
Outside, the hall lightwas still on, just as she had left it, reflecting off the walls, freshlypainted in a creamy off-white. Her gaze took in the empty landing beforesettling on the old wooden door to her right. Staring at it, her heart beatfaster and a corkscrew of panic twisted in her gut. The bolt was drawn back.Again. She wasn’t imagining it. She’d prayed she was wrong. She sought the onlypossible explanation, calling her husband’s name. “Paul, is that you?”
She listened but heardnothing. Summoning all the courage she could find, she crept into the hall,lifted the ancient latch, and cracked the closet door open to peek into thedarkness. It creaked. She slammed the door shut, bolting it tightly, as she’ddone twice before. Sprinting across the landing, she called again, “Paul? Areyou down there?” Silence.
Clutching the banister,she made her way down carpeted stairs into the kitchen. She flicked the switch.The fluorescent light shuddered into life, illuminating the newly fitted pineunits and gleaming stove. The aroma of boeuf bourguignon emanated from theoven. But Paul wasn’t there or in the living room.

Catherine's blog is here

TheDemons of Cambian Street is available from:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnesand Noble and other onlinebooksellers.

Thank you again for interviewingme, Sue. I enjoyed it! Good luck with ‘Hewhay Hall’. It sounds just my sort ofbook and I shall look forward to reading it.

Do You Know Your Genre?

2012-02-17T12:28:00.000Z

I know I'm a sad case, but I've been somewhat bewildered lately. As you all know, my first book, "Perfect Score", was a suspense novel (it's a finalist in the EPIC 2012 awards, mainstream category, so keep your fingers crossed for me). True, it was m/m and often got lumped into erotic sections of review sites. But it's far from erotic - quite non-explicit really. And the fact it was m/m is incidental. It's about the angst of two men who are born on opposite sides of the track. It's set in the 1960s and their paths should be together but they have an incredible struggle to achieve that - if they ever do (you have to read it to find out).

Now, here's my problem: my second novel, "Hewhay Hall", due out in April, is a paranormal thriller. Yikes! That's a very different genre. Does that matter? Does an author attract fans because of the genre or because of the writing? What do you think?

I'm now into my third novel which, at the outset, was going to be a simple thriller. But...it's morphing - oh yes, watch it go! - and transforming as I write into a...paranormal thriller. It was quite an unconscious change, but it's definitely happening. Have I found my genre? Or has it found me? Has this ever happened to you?

Writers' Platform Building Campaign

2012-02-06T20:56:00.000Z

Always on the look-out for great opportunities. And here's a super one.

This is brain-child of Rachael Harrie of Rach Writes who is once again hosting the Write Campaign which aims at helping writers and bloggers make contact with the aim of building their author platforms (and I'm all in favor of that!).

This will be the first time I'm going to participate and I'm excited. Why don't you join me?

How I Find Great Books to Read

2012-02-04T15:27:00.005Z

I admit that, because it seemed to be the right thing to do at the time, that I may have done it once or twice in my naive-first-published- period and I know you've all been bombarded by them. I'm talking about authors' multiple-postings on social- media network sites exhorting me to buy their books.

Now, I have to honestly say that I've never bought one of those books unless it was from an author I knew and liked.

But the other day I found a book I adored and I discovered it online.

Before I tell you all about it, let me just thank a great blogger - Ciara Knight - who, every Monday, writes a splendid post on "Did I Notice Your Book?" Check her out if you don't know Ciara because she has such a variety of books and I like the way she's choosing them.

I discovered "The Generation Game" by Sophie Duffy when I visited writing-guru, journalist and wonderful creative-writing teacher Margaret James's blog where she has a "book of the month" spot.

Sophie Duffy's The Generation Game was January's choice and it caught my eye immediately. Here's the blurb:

Philippa Smith is in her forties and has a beautiful newborn baby girl. She also has no husband, and nowhere to turn. So she turns to the only place she knows: the beginning. Retracing her life, she confronts the daily obstacles that shaped her very existence. From the tragic events of her childhood abandonment, to the astonishing accomplishments of those close to her, Philippa learns of the sacrifices others chose to make, and the outcome of buried secrets.

Philippa discovers a celebration of life, love, and the Golden era of television. A reflection of everyday people, in not so everyday situations.

Although it might not seem like it, when you look at the miserly number of books I feature on the blog, I am an avid reader and get through two or even three a week. But I only write about the ones I like. And I liked this one.

I think it will appeal to anyone who can remember "Blue Peter" when it was hosted by Valerie, Peter and John, and anyone who is an Anglophile. The narrator is far from perfect but I couldn't help relating to her as she lumbered through life making the wrong decisions over and over again - just the type of decisions I've made - and by the time I was mid-read I felt like Philippa Smith was my best friend.

If you think this is a book for you, do get it. And, thinking about the way I found it, I'm about to repeat something I've said before on this blog: blogs are great for book-marketing and for finding good reads.

Getting the Jitters

2012-02-01T15:39:00.003Z

Morning everyone. I've got the jitters and, as usual, Alex J Cavanaugh has the solution.

On the first Wednesday of every month everyone signed up to Insecure Writer's Support Group can express their writing worries. (If you're interested in joining, click on the link).

Yep I'm getting the jitters.

I have one book published and although it's traditionally published, the major marketing for it lies with me. And I suck at marketing.
I have a book with another publisher getting ready for edits and I'm nervous about the editor's comments (worse scenario: major rewrite I'm afraid, Susan Roebuck, you got it all wrong).
And I'm writing a third novel which is giving me crisis after crisis of confidence: it'll never be as good as my first novel, the plot's not working, I can't get into the heads of the characters, I'm rambling.

Do you know? After writing all that, I think it is all a clear example of "the more you know, the less you think you know". Does that make sense? Probably not... :-(

I Don't Think It Works

2012-01-27T11:41:00.002Z

Sssshhh...I'm going to tell you a little secret:

Just recently I've noticed that there are posts swamping Facebook, Google Plus, Link'dIn, Twitter that shout, "New book out now!", "My book's down to $2", "Free Kindle Books!", "Great Review of...on...".

Now call me callous if you like but (takes deep breath) I'm afraid I've stopped reading them.

Does this mean that those networking sites just don't work for book-promo marketing? Or am I alone in this? I'd love to hear what you think.

Deborah Lawrenson - Author Interview

2012-01-25T12:56:00.000Z

Did you see the book review I wrote yesterday for Deborah Lawrenson's "The Lantern"? Deborah kindly offered to tell us something about herself. Take a look because she describes her journey to becoming an author with a top publisher, where inspiration for "The Lantern" came from, and how her individual writing style developed.

Deborah: I was born in London, but lived all over the world as a child, as my father was in the diplomatic service. These days, my husband, daughter and I split our time between the south of England and the south of France.

I trained as a journalist because I wanted to write but didn’t have the confidence to write a novel straight out of university. It was while I was working as a reporter on a gossip column in London that I realised that, not only was that a great fun job for someone in their 20s, but that there was the subject I’d been looking for. My first novel was a comic satire on the world of London newspaper diary pages. I wouldn’t recommend anyone goes looking for it though – it hasn’t stood the test of time and I think now that it should have stayed in a drawer unpublished. It was the book I practised on while I was learning how to write a novel.

Gradually, I have found a style that is lyrical and visual. I really try hard to capture the special spirit of a place, to paint pictures in words that enhance the setting of a strong story. It’s the highest compliment any reader can pay to say that they felt they had been transported to another place while reading one of my books.

The Lantern actually started as a family joke. Summer evenings in Provence are invariably spent outside, often with long dinners for friends in candlelight. I bought so many lanterns for atmospheric light on those nights that my husband and teenage daughter were rolling their eyes and telling me I had gone lantern-crazy. Seriously, though, I think it works well because it’s simple and memorable as a title and the lantern in the novel is the symbol of where the past and the present meet.

The beautiful landscape of the Luberon region of Provence is as realistic as I can make it: the great pleated hills that look as if there are dark rivers coursing down as night falls, the blue quality of the distance, the stone hill-top villages and the fields of lavender.

When my husband and I bought an atmospheric but crumbling old house in Provence, we camped on stone floors and hoped for the best. I re-read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and wondered…what if I had come here knowing less about the man I was with?

Several events in the novel are true. A ceiling did collapse. The mysterious perfume is real in that I smell it but never find a source. The light that flickers disconcertingly, the discovery of rooms we didn’t know were there, the making of the walnut wine, the man who composes music: none of these are invented either.

I fell in love with F Scott Fitzgerald’s prose as a teenager, starting with The Great Gatsby, and have never stopped loving it. I also lose myself in Lawrence Durrell’s sensuous writing, especially Prospero’s Cell and Bitter Lemons. I admire too the works of Jean Giono and Marcel Pagnol, Antoine de St Exupery and Emile Zola.

My favourite authors form a long list which includes Carol Shields, Julian Barnes, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Kate Atkinson, Armistead Maupin, Margaret Forster, Penelope Lively, crime writers Peter Robinson and Simon Brett, and many others. What they all share is a mastery of their genre and style.

Sue: Well, I think that's the best proof that the advice given to authors about reading a lot is correct :-) Read, read, read.

*****

This part is taken from a post from Deborah's blog: http://deborah-lawrenson.blogspot.com/ :

The Author's View of "The Lantern"

On a subtle level The Lantern is a novel about reading and stories and words. Is it too descriptive, using too many varied adjectives? Maybe, but the narrator Eve is a translator: words, and the precise choice of them, matter to her. The control of language, for her, means stability and rational understanding of her surroundings and situation when it seems she might otherwise be losing control. The novel keys into timeless fears of the unknown, and the uncertainty when the first stages of an idyllic romance are over and real life begins.

Eve is a shy bookworm, whose comfort zone is reading. But her new life cut off from family and friends, coupled with mounting uncertainty about Dom, only sends her to books that exacerbate her dread, until she is not sure whether she is imagining the worst because she is influenced by the stories she is reading, or whether she is more accepting than she should be because she is seeing real life through the gauze of literature.

It is also a novel about spirits and ghosts and the histories held all around us, both in the obvious sense of the atmosphere of the run-down old house, and the ghosts of Eve and Dom’s own past that will not settle. Is Les Genévriers haunted, or are these psychological manifestations? And, just as there are always echoes of the past life of old houses, there are always echoes of earlier stories in literature.

In The Lantern, there is a clear line that stretches back through Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre, the classic English gothic novel of the house, the man and the first wife…

Why set the novel in Provence? Remember Mr Rochester’s request of Jane (which she refuses) that they live together as man and wife in the South of France, even though they cannot be legally married because his wife is still alive. Beyond Jane Eyre, is the Bluebeard legend: the old French tale of a new young wife whose husband refuses to tell her what became of his previous wives, but she realises that the answer lies behind a locked door of his castle.

Bénédicte, as an elderly woman alone on the hill, becomes the subject of speculation and stories heard and embellished by trespassing village children. Behind the brightness of the Provençal countryside are dark tales told by farmers and shepherds, retold in books by the writer Jean Giono and read by both Bénédicte and Eve.

The Lantern is also about isolation. Eve and Dom insulate themselves from the modern world in their own dream cocoon. Bénédicte lives on alone at Les Genévriers, the young girl who has become an isolated old woman whom others call crazy. Marthe is isolated by her blindness. In such circumstances, small details become large.

At times when the characters seem detached from the reality, their state of mind or interpretation of a situation is mirrored in their descriptions of the landscape. In a very obvious example, Eve and Dom travel to Davos for a skiing trip, but Dom will not admit what is troubling him - while all around is the cold, hard white dazzle of a frozen world.

Both the novel’s past and present voices are first-person narrators; both are courageous, loyal and self-contained in their different situations. (Perhaps on some psychic level, there is a mutual recognition of this.) Although they do admit to fear and anger, for the most part their emotions are buried, but surface in the way they see what is around them. To Eve, in the first flush of love, the property seems to expand around them, with the infinite possibilities of blue horizon beyond. Later, the walnuts fall from the tree “like fat brown tears”.

This detachment and displacement is echoed in loss of one sense and the subsequent need to compensate by using others more acutely. The idea of writing a “sensory novel” (which luxuriates in descriptions of all five senses) grew from this. How do you capture music, or fragrance, or texture, or taste in words? The challenge was to try to write visual descriptions might be vivid if heard by a blind person, or scent descriptions that might come alive through the sight of words on a page.

Fascinating insight, isn't it? I wonder how many author's can analyze their writing so well? Trying to think about myself....

Thank you so much Deborah for this wonderful post. I've enjoyed meeting you so much.

Links: http://deborah-lawrenson.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Deborah-Lawrenson/211837778847973

Buy links: http://www.amazon.com/Lantern/dp/1409135489/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327494425&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lantern-ebook/dp/B005570W0Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327495977&sr=8-2

A Gem of a Book - The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson

2012-01-24T13:12:00.002Z

If anyone tells you that author blogs don't work, just say phooey. If I hadn't read Deborah Lawrenson's blog I doubt I'd have heard about her novel "The Lantern". I'mbombarded with lists of Best Books 2011 (threeof which I've read but won't bother with the rest) and can't understand whythis little gem isn't up there among the best.

As I started reading "The Lantern" it was as if I wasmeeting an old friend after a long absence, or sunning myself on a mellowsummer's day, or getting into my own bed after a vacation, or sitting in frontof a log-fire on a cold evening. This isgoing to be a "feel-good" read, I thought. Little did I know.

The book is steeped in atmosphere. If you want a taster,check out Ms Lawrenson's blog but the book itself rises to higher levels andevokes the scents and flavours of past and present Provence.I was constantly amazed at the author's skill in creating deceptively easy buthauntingly beautiful prose.

The main characters initially slip into an enviable way oflife. They meet, fall in love and move to a crumbling but beautiful oldfarmhouse. That's the moment for the shift in the feel-good factor, it's the moment "The Lantern" morphs into a taleof gripping suspense and intrigue. The author proficiently weaves a parallelstory of past inhabitants of the house into the main plot leaving the readerconstantly wondering: who is the evil and hopelessly cruel brother Pierre? Ishe a ghost and what part does he play in today's events? Why does husband Dombecome so reticent? Has he committed some kind of crime?

The main story is set in present times and it's narrator, Eve, is reminiscent of the narrator in Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca". The sub-plot, however, is firmly fixed in the early to middle twentieth century and is populated by strong, fully rounded characters. The reader experiences their despairs and hopes and how they deal with blindness and insanity. Thehistory of how lavender was - and is, I presume - used in perfume-making is fascinating.

If you want to be transported to the lavender fields of Provence,splash on Lavande de Nuit scent,or wander the cobbled streets of Cassis, while immersing yourself in acompelling tale of betrayal and intrigue then "The Lantern" is a book for you.It's certainly one I will keep and dip into again and again.

**** Deborah has kindly agreed to give us some insights into "The Lantern" - I'll post them tomorrow. Her article is a fascinating read.

In April, her publisher is going to publish a deluxe version. Take a look at the beautiful cover:

In the meantime, if you'd like to follow Deborah on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Deborah-Lawrenson/211837778847973

Blog: http://deborah-lawrenson.blogspot.com

See you tomorrow!

Alex Cavanaugh on Successful Blogging

2012-01-20T09:06:00.000Z

Surely everyone - particularly those who adore SF - has heard of Alex Cavanaugh. He wrote a fabulous article for me here last year. He's also the author of the acclaimed Amazon best-seller SF adventure CassaStar and creator of its main character the rebellious, unforgettable whiz Cosbolt fighter-pilot Byron.

In addition, Alex is a successful blogger with a huge and faithful following - you can be proud if you say you belong to Alex's Ninja Army.

All writers should aspire to what he's achieved. So - and, of course, hoping to catch a few tips myself - I asked Alex to give some advice to those who are starting to blog.

Read on to find out what he said and also to hear about his new novel CassaFire which is due out Feb 28.

Alex: Here’s a few things I’ve learned about blogging over the years:

Blog about your passions! Every blog needs a focus and it doesn’t have to be about writing. If you select your blog’s theme based on what fires you up, it will come through in your posts and draw in readers.
Remain positive. Sure we have our down days. (I started the Insecure Writer’s Support Group for just that purpose.) But if you’re constantly negative, no one will stick around.
Set a schedule. Even if it’s just a couple days a week.
Blog details do matter. Place your Google Friends Connect button high on your sidebar. Make it easy for people to leave comments. (Embedded comment boxes and word verification are challenging.) Keep your posts short and invite others to get involved in the discussion.
Follow a variety of other blogs. Don’t just follow other writers and authors. You’ll learn a lot following them, but when it comes time for your book to enter the world, you want as wide an audience as possible.
Get involved. Blogging is a community. You need to get involved by commenting on other blogs and participating in blogfests and other events. You need to give back by encouraging others and shouting out their accomplishments.
It’s not the followers, it’s the connections. Sure you want a lot of people following your blog. But forming relationships is more important.

Wow, that’s quite a list isn’t it?

Sue: But an invaluable list. Thank you :-) I'll just check my Friends button...and see when the next blogfest is...
Alex, tell us about your new novel CassaFire. Are there any similarities with CassaStar? And how did it come about?

Alex: CassaFire begins twenty years after CassaStar ends.

Similarities: The storyline continues to follow Byron and his journeys. It’s still low-tech and focuses on character development.

Differences: This time there is a female lead, which adds a new relationship aspect. Most of CassaStar took place in space while the setting for this one is a planet. And I think it’s better written!

CassaFire came about because fans wanted more. They wondered why there were no women in CassaStar and wanted a female character. Yes, I panicked! Fortunately I’d envisioned many adventures for Byron and one revolved around Athee. I took advantage of NaNo 2010 and after many revisions, sent the book to my publisher last June.

And as they say, the rest is history!

Thanks again, Sue!
You're always very welcome, Alex. CassaStar is one of the few SF books I've read and enjoyed. Much as I adored Byron I'm so looking forward to reading about a female character (I foresee just as many sparks flying).

**** Here's a preview of what we can expect from CassaFire. And you really HAVE to take a look at the incredible Book-Trailer (below)...

CassaFire
by Alex J. Cavanaugh

CassaStar was just the beginning…

The Vindicarn War is a distant memory and Byron’s days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. He has kept the promise he made to his fallen mentor and friend - to probe space on an exploration vessel. Shuttle work is dull, but it’s a free and solitary existence. The senior officer is content with his life aboard the Rennather.

The detection of alien ruins sends the exploration ship to the distant planet of Tgren. If their scientists can decipher the language, they can unlock the secrets of this device. Is it a key to the Tgren’s civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassan’s technology and strange mental abilities.

To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers themselves; the strongest of which belongs to a pilot named Athee, a woman whose skills rival Byron’s unique abilities. Forced to train her mind and further develop her flying aptitude, he finds his patience strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy…

Available February 28, 2012
Science fiction - space opera/adventure
Print ISBN 978-0-9827139-4-5, $15.95, 6x9 Trade paperback, 240 pages
EBook ISBN 978-0-9827139-6-9, $4.99, EBook available in all formats

CassaFire is the sequel to Cavanaugh’s first book, CassaStar, an Amazon Top Ten Best Seller:

“…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein’s early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the many Star Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars.” - Library Journal

You can visit the author’s site at http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/
Book trailer available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6VINRGtyE.
B&N - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cassafire-alex-j-cavanaugh/1034742568

Beginning with a Bang!

2012-01-18T21:46:00.001Z

I've been away - Madeira called, so I went.

Now I'm back I've been having a few thoughts about literary life in 2011 (my first full year as a published author).

What have I enjoyed about it most? The interviews, participating in contests, blogging and trying to build a social network (as all authors must) have been interesting. Receiving book reviews has been nail-biting at times but heartening on the whole. I think what I've enjoyed most are, apart from receiving comments from readers, the awards.

I actively went out and sought book reviews but I'm not sure I'm going to be doing that with my new novel that is coming out in April from Etopia Press, a publisher that is proving to be lovely to work with. No, I won't be spending so much time seeking reviews. This time I'll be investigating Literary Awards.

My novel, Perfect Score, has received a few: it's a finalist in the EPIC Awards , it has an honorary mention in The Rainbow Awards, and it's one of the Top Picks from JesseWave Reviews (Felix Faber).

What do you think? What promotes a book more - reviews or awards?

If you share my interest, take a look at this site: Literary Awards and we might meet at the 2013 Pulitzer Prizes (just joking LOL)

And now onto the BIG news...take a deep breath all you Alex Ninjas...the King of Author Bloggers is coming to this blog on January 20th! Yes, Alex Cavanaugh will be giving us some hints on how to be successful bloggers. In addition (yes, there's more!), he's going to give us an insight into his new book CassaFire. January 20th - it'll be a good day.

Wonderful Artist

2011-12-26T19:49:00.001Z

I don't remember ever seeing such a fabulous Christmas card. I'll never throw it out - it's already stuck to my 'fridge - because it perfectly captures the atmosphere of my childhood Christmases. And that's me, the chubby one, on the floor with my hand in the bag of crisps.
The artist is Marius van Dokkum and I was so curious about him that I checked out his site.
Have you ever just "clicked" with an artist? I often do. Perhaps the one whose paintings I can admire for hours on end is Hieronymus Bosch. But now there's a new boy in town. Marius van Dokkum's work will provide me with writing inspiration for many years to come. I can feel it in my bones. How lovely.
Check him out. Is there one of his paintings that makes you think of a story? I've seen one...

Thank You to my Followers - and an Invitation

2011-12-21T11:54:00.001Z

A BIG thanks to everyone who Follows me. I do appreciate you so much. Just in case you've forgotten the Story of Christmas, take a look at the video - it's so cute (and I promise you'll enjoy it).

An Invitation

**** If any of you are authors and would like to have an interview (to promote your books for example), or if you would like me to review your books, please send an email to sue(at)susanroebuck.com. I'll come back to you very quickly.

Just a note about reviews: I only review books I enjoy. I see no point in posting a bad review (I may let the author know but only by private message) because everyone's tastes differ and my bad review will not help struggling authors one little bit. I especially enjoy pure paranormal, but I'll review anything except erotica and sci-fi (and the only exception to that - in the sci fi category - is Alex J. Cavanaugh LOL).

In the meantime, HAPPY HOLIDAYS and my sincere wishes for a healthy and successful 2012.

I'd Like You To Meet Ms Elisa Rolle

2011-12-16T10:13:00.005Z

Today I'm so proud to welcome Elisa Rolle. Everyone in the LGBT world knows Elisa - or should do. Everything about Elisa is here: www.elisarolle.com but let me just give you a quick overview.

Her Livejournal and blog has a multitude of avid followers;
She produces uncountable, highly-regarded reviews per week of LGBT literature;
She writes fascinating posts on LGBT history, past authors and interesting photographic insights into countries, most recently New York and south USA (I see she came to Portugal in 2002!)
She produces annual lists of top novels and top readers;
She single-handedly conducts the annual Rainbow Awards , which are awarded for excellence in LGBT novels for that year. This year she had over 300 entries and 100 judges from all over the world to deal with.
There is a separate award for book covers.

I have been lucky enough to catch up with Elisa in her busy schedule. I pinned her down (excuse the expression) with some rather probing questions about how the Rainbow Awards came about and, among other insights, advice to newbies. Take a look at how Elisa responds:

Sue: I often see Twitters or FaceBook posts with authors announcing, “Elisa Rolle’s reviewed my book!” How does that make you feel?

Elisa: At first it was strange, and I was telling myself, why they are so happy I reviewed their book, what difference is there between my review (which is, btw, more rambling than a real review) and many other similar posts I see around. The most common point various authors highlighted is that I found in their book something that was not apparent, but that was there; something that, sometimes, not even the author was aware of.

Sue: That's true - and I speak from experience. Elisa, this year’s Rainbow Awards for LGBT fiction attracted a huge number of submissions. If it continues to grow like this, will you be able to continue with it?

Elisa: Probably not alone. I have already asked to someone if he/she was willing to help. The problem is that many authors /publishers “trust” me with their books and I feel like I’m betraying their trust if I open the awards to others (of course I’m talking about the managing of it here, since the reading is already very open, more than 100 judges all over the world). It’s a little like my Livejournal, I think it’s not possible to “open” it. If I ever arrive at a point where I’m not able to manage it, I will probably simply close it or change location. The Rainbow Awards, on the other hand, I can probably move, if I find a trustworthy organization.

Sue: I really was astounded this year how well you managed it. Tell us about the history of the Rainbow Awards for LGBT fiction.

Elisa: Many think it was an “answer” to the change in policy of the Lambda Literary Awards (the Lammies), but it’s not exactly like that. I have always had a fascination for literary awards and I myself was complaining there was no real award specifically aimed at Gay Romance. The category in the Lammies was very restrictive, and they are more a mainstream award. And when they changed the policy (even if it was only for two years) they limited even more access for authors writing romance. I love romance ;-) and so I thought it was right to have an award for both print and ebook, for published authors and for self-published authors, despite their gender and orientation. We are not judging the author, we are judging the book.

Sue: Hooray for that! I am amazed at what a prolific reader you are. How many books do you “devour” a week and how many reviews do you write?

Elisa: I slowed down a bit in the last few months, but more or less I read 4 full length novels per week, more if they are short novels or novella. More or less I read 200/250 pages per night.I don’t watch telly or play videogames ;-)

Sue: You've slowed down? I hadn't noticed LOL. Do you read and/or review books other than LGBT?

Elisa: Not anymore. I love history, and I read some essays, but I don’t review them. And I used to read a lot of heterosexual romances, but now I don’t really have time. Sometimes I do, but it's one in a thousand.

Sue: In your opinion, is the LGBT fiction market growing – both in terms of readers and authors? Does this affect the LGBT community in any way?

Elisa: Of course it’s growing. I have an email from a well-known LGBT author who is still amazed to find that, only in October, we had more than 200 LGBT ebook and print releases. One years ago it was probably less than 50. Publishers and authors are entering the marker each day and this greatly affects the community, in a positive and negative way. Positive since there is more choice and for authors it’s easier to find a way to be published. Negative since the quality is a little in “danger” because there is not always attention to details, and for some genres this is really important. Plus I think there is a lot of improvisation, even on the reviewer side: a lot of blogs are opening their pages to new reviewers and, just as for the publishing market, the quality isn't always up to the standard.

Sue: Finally, Elisa, what advice would you give to a writer of LGBT fiction who is just starting out trying to get published?

Elisa: Try to understand if a publisher is right for your book; it’s true there are a lot of publishers but they tend to be specialized, so don’t send your book everywhere, just focus on what you really want. And be careful with your book, even if it’s easier now to self-publish, this doesn’t mean you have to publish everything you write. Before doing that have someone else read your book who is not a close friend or a relative - but someone who will have the courage to tell you where you went wrong. And be humble, accept suggestions. But don't destroy your book: more than once I reviewed a book and found something that wasn’t ringing true, and in the end, it was the editor telling the author to change that point since “it was not what the reader was expecting…” Readership, however, is very different, and so if something is not right for you, it will probably not be right for readers either. Be original, don’t try to write what the “reader” is expecting, write what you like; if you don’t like it then you won't be able to write it correctly.

Links: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/
http://www.elisarolle.com/

If you'd like to see what Elisa said about "Perfect Score": http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/tag/author%3A%20susan%20roebuck

Changing URL

2011-12-14T15:40:00.000Z

Thanks so much to Laura Barnes (see post below this). I'm following your advice.

For All My Lovely Followers!

From now on the URL of this blog will be: www.susanroebuck.com
Blogger should redirect you if you forget :-)

Another Authors' Champion

2011-12-13T13:03:00.001Z

Another fabulous person in my League of Authors' Champions! Meet Laura Barnes.

I first heard of Laura from Matthew MacNish's Theqqe Blog. Now Matthew is another Authors' Champion. If you don't know him, check out his blog and the amazing critiques that he does of authors' query letters to agents and publishers. He's so talented at it.

Back to Laura. She's a marketing consultant and (to quote her blog) "gives constructive feedback about the look and function of an author blog from a marketing perspective".

I firmly believe that blogging is of fundamental importance to an author, not only to gain readers but also to get writing advice. An author never stops learning. And it's thanks to these generous, warm-hearted people, that we learn. Honestly, I'm all teared-up at how much good there is in this world.

Would you like to see what Laura says about "Lauracea"? Pop on over to her post and leave, either here or on her blog, your own thoughts.

Another Tireless Champion of Authors

2011-12-08T13:00:00.001Z

Call me Flabbergasted from now on.

First we met Morgen Bailey, Patron Saint of Authors, (http://lauracea.blogspot.com/2011/11/morgen-bailey-patron-saint-of-writers.html )

I'd now like to introduce you to Elise Rolle, tireless champion of LGBT writers worldwide. Her reviews are legendary http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/ and authors can count themselves privileged to have their work reviewed by her. In addition, every year she runs the much acclaimed and ever-growing Rainbow Awards for LGBT fiction and non-fiction, thus bringing many authors onto the world stage.

The 2011 Rainbow Awards have been announced (ahem, you may see "Perfect Score" on the Honourable Mentions list for General Fiction) and just look at the HUGE amount of categories she has to deal with! http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1467864.html

Elise has kindly agreed to visit Lauracea blog in the very near future. So WATCH FOR THE INTERVIEW... And call me Flabbergasted twice over.

The Hun Has Marched!

2011-12-02T14:40:00.001Z

Please welcome a regularvisitor to Lauracea – Tristram LaRoche.

Didn’t I say he’s an upand coming author? He’s outdone himselfthis time because on Thursday December 1st the Hun marched, so watch your backs!His new novella “The Hun and The General”was published by Etopia Press.

What do I think of when Ihear the name Attila? Barbarians, vandals, conqueror of much of Europe (oh? Is he back again?). Wasn’t he called the Scourge of God? Let’s see if Tris thinks he was.

Welcome again, Tris, greatto see you back with yet another outstanding book published. Congratulations.

Thank you, Sue.It is always a pleasure to visit you, you’re very kind.

Sue:Tell us your version of Attila. What kind of man was he?

Tristram: To the outside world he was a fearsome and fearless barbarian;an ogre, a tyrant, a marauding, raping, pillaging thief who ate the babies ofhis victims. He was, of course, not all these things. Legends are neveraccurate. The true Attila, at least for my story, was tormented by the dualityof his character. He had to appear all these things to the enemies of hispeople, but deep inside all he wanted was to be loved and needed. The trueAttila was caring, loving and filled with self-doubt. He was tired of having tokeep up the public display of infallibility.

Sue:What’s the new novella about and why should all lovers of M/M literature readit?

Tristram: The Emperor of the eastern Roman empire has gone back on his deal with the Hunsby cutting off all payments and supplies. He has erected a huge wall around Constantinople and turned it into a fortress,believing he can win any stand-off withthe barbarians. Yet he is not sure, and recalls his best statesman, Livianus,from his retirement in Gaul to pay one more visit to the Hun King to try to broker a newpeace. The emperor is unaware that his own sister plots against him, and thatAttila the Hun and Livianus once had feelings for each other that, if ignitedagain, may change the course of history. Of course, when Livianus arrives in Pannonia he is welcomed by Attila with more thanopen arms! This is a work of fiction woven around true events and characters.It explores the human, frail side of otherwise immensely strong and ruthlessmen to show how love can change things for the good. The idea of a tough oldtyrant like Attila needing to be dominated was just too tempting.

Sue:Let’s imagine that you’re going to spend the day in Atilla and the General’scompany. Since you’re the host, how would you entertain them? (And keep it PG15or less, please! Sorry to be a spoilsport…)

Tristram: To be honest, from what I’ve seen, they can entertainthemselves quite well without my interference! I know they like to bathe, so alittle party around the pool would be a must. Maybe before that we could makeuse of Attila’s mud pit for little knock about. As Attila is keen to turnLivianus into an accomplished Hun archer, I would arrange an afternoon ofhorsemanship and games. In the evening we could feast on fruits and Huncheeses, all washed down with Pannonian ale or fermented mare’s milk.

Sue:Anything new on the horizon Tris?

Tristram: I had four books published this year. Once I’d finishedThe Hun and The General I decided it was time to take stock. I am veryconcerned to deliver writing of the best quality I can. I don’t believe anauthor can turn out books as if they are a production line and maintainquality. So, right now I am going to enjoy December and the New Year, continueto knock ideas around in my head, and then have something new to offer myreaders later in 2012, maybe in the spring. But I am willing to say that I havebegun adapting The Hun and The General for the screen.

*** Buy The Hunand The General here: Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Hun-General-ebook/dp/B006GHC3HE

Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hun-General-ebook/dp/B006GHC3HE

Amazon.de http://www.amazon.de/Hun-General-ebook/dp/B006GHC3HE

Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1107830860?ean=2940013474581&itm=2&usri=tristram+la+roche

All Romance Ebooks http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thehunandthegeneral-648816-144.html

Livianus is bored and longs for action. His reward for serving Rome is thegovernorship of a quiet corner of Gaul, but ashe whiles away his days at his sumptuous villa, his thoughts turn to Attila theHun, the feared barbarian with whom Livianus once enjoyed an intimatefriendship. When a desperate emperor asks him to return to Pannonia to brokera truce with Attila, Livianus’s old passion flares.

Attila is losing the will to go on. He is tired of being a tyrant but hispeople’s future depends on him. The arrival of Livianus renews Attila’s spiritas he prepares to march on Constantinople. Livianushas nothing to bargain with, but when the emperor’s sister delivers aproposition for Attila, a new and brighter future seems to lay directly ahead.For the people, and especially for the two men.

But the deadly hand of the emperor isn’t interested in peace, and as theirplans are destroyed, only one course of action remains open to the Hun and thegeneral.

*** And, just because you deserve it, here’s an excerpt. I’m afraid I asked Tris to give me one that’s PG13 (which probably doesn’t do the book justice LOL).

Pannonia, 5thCentury AD

Attilasmashed his fists into the table, toppling his cup of mare’s milk. “They callme The Scourge of God and yet dare to question my orders?”
Thewarrior held his king’s gaze. “Your Highness—”
“Don’tYour Highness me, you blubbering fool. I’m sick of your groveling, Barbax.Speak frankly to me, without fear.” Attila rounded the huge table and broughthimself up close to the trembling warrior. “Or shall I have you impaled andleft out on the plains as a warning to others?”
Barbaxshook his head. His lower lip trembled and his voice wavered. “N-no, Attila. Ibeg you, not that. If I am to die, let it be by your hand, with your sword.”
Attilaflung his arms wide and Barbax flinched.
“Howcould I kill you?” Attila laughed and slapped Barbax on the shoulder. “Of allmy warriors, you are the one I need at my side when we take Constantinople.”
“Yes,Attila. Of course.” Barbax shifted from one foot to the other, his eyesaverted.
“But?”
Barbaxstared at him blankly.
“I’mwaiting for the but. Comeon, man, show me your guts. Tell me why we shouldn’t seize what’s left of the Roman Empire once and for all.” Attila turned to the table and saw thefallen goblet, the milk dripping off to soak into the mat on the floor. Hebellowed to the far side of the room. “Girl, fetch ale.” He perched on the edgeof the table and smiled. “Let us drink, my friend. See if the barley loosensyour tongue more than your king’s wishes seem to.”
Aslave girl scurried in, carrying a jug and two goblets, which she set on thetable.
“Hurryup, woman, or I’ll tear your womb from you with my bare hands.” He grabbed thegirl from behind as she bent over the table to pour the beer. He pulled her bythe hips until his cock pressed against her buttocks. “Or maybe you’d like usboth to give you a good fucking?” He let her go and laughed. “Away with you. Wecan pour our own ale.”
Attilafilled one silver goblet and gave it to Barbax, then shook the dregs of milkfrom his wooden cup and served himself. He took a long swig and wiped his mouthwith the back of his hand. “Well, get on with it then.”
Barbaxswallowed hard. “Theodosius has made Constantinopleimpregnable.”
“Nothingis impregnable, except that Visigoth wife of yours.”
“Thewalls he’s built around the city are like nothing else on earth.”
“Andnothing on earth has ever stopped us.”
“Butthis is different. Constantinople is weeksaway.”
“We’vemarched farther.”
“Butnot with the machines we’ll need if we are to even break one brick. We’ll needbattering rams and towers and—”
“Andwe’ll take them. We’ll take all we’ve got, ironworkers and carpenters too, andthen we’ll take Constantinople. I’ll personally impale thatsnake Theodosius before I piss on his throne.” He drained his cup and slammedit onto the table. “Start the preparations. I want to leave before the rainyseason.”
“ButAttila—”
“Butnothing! Now get out of my sight before I put you over the table and do what Ishould have done to that serving wench.”
Attilastroked his fine beard with his fingers and watched Barbax leave. Pillaging hadserved their people well, but they had need of greater wealth now. Yet despitehis bravado, the warrior king hoped for an alternative to the march on Constantinople. Barbaxspoke the truth. With so much to transport, they would move slowly. Word oftheir approach would reach Constantinople long beforethey did, and Emperor Theodosius would have time to prepare. What Attila neededwas a miracle.

*** You can find Tristram laRoche here:

Website: http://tristramlaroche.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TristramLaRoche

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tristram-La-Roche/198191080213824

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4917230.Tristram_La_Roche

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tristram-La-Roche/e/B0054U5A2E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Queer Magazine Online: http://www.queermagazineonline.com/book-stuff/author-pages/item/6157-tristram-la-roche

Morgen Bailey - the Patron Saint of Writers

2011-11-27T19:06:00.001Z

I have a “private” running joke with Morgen Bailey. OnTwitter I call her the “Patron Saint of Writers”. I suppose you can have a patron saint who’s very muchalive and kicking, can’t you? Well, anyway, she’s the most unselfish pioneer ofwriters’ careers that I believe exists. She organizes author interviews (as wespeak she’s done 189 – I was number 5), and author spotlights. She championsindie-authors by listing their books on her site (http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/books-other-peoples/),gives out weekly writing prompts to get you going (they’re very effective too).She posts a weekly author’s short story in her Friday Flash Fiction spot and inAugust 2010, probably before anyone else thought of them, she started a regularpodcast. As I write today she’s already done forty of them.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Well, not to Morgen, she thriveson it and is perfectly happy to help any author who contacts her. On top of allthat she writes too – and some of herwork is for free. You’ll find them on https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/morgenbailey

I’ve just read her free short story (I know, cheapskate,that’s me) “April’s Fool”. This is quality fiction, in my opinion, and readslike one of Roald Dahl’s short adult stories (“Lamb to the Slaughter” springsto mind).

I think that Morgen deserves a little compensation for allher hard work and the spotlight should be on her for a while. Let’s find outsomething about her.

Sue: Morgen, welcome to Lauracea. You know, I can’t helpthinking that you’re the David Frost of author and publishing-professionals interviews.Who is one of the most interesting people you’ve met (apart from me of courseLOL) and why?

Morgen: Thank you. Lauracea. I must admit I had to Googlethe name and came up with “The lauracea are usually trees, but the genusCassytha are parasitic climber herbs”. That’s funny. :) (LOL – the reason myblog’s called Lauracea is because it’s the Latin name for the endangered laurelforests (laurissilva) in Madeira Island. It’s one of the last remaining places in the world wherethis ancient forest still exists…)

OK, to your question (that’s why we’re here after all :)).Interesting people… oh my goodness, what a choice. For memorable my firstthought was the one MBE (Member of the British Empire – Tony Thorne no. 171)but then no.17 Malcolm Brenner does for his book’s plot (I’ll let your readersgo and investigate). I am in awe of the writers who’ve kept going despitebundles of rejections slips (which are shredded, wallpapered, binned, filed andquite possibly eaten!) and the most memorable was Sheila Quigley (no.192) whotook 30 years to see any kind of success. I did say when I started writing(only a handful of years ago) that Barbara Cartland was still writing in her90s so I had plenty of time, although I am hoping for a little sooner thanthat!

It hadn’t occurred to me when I started these that I’d belining up over 250 (and counting) but I keep getting emails by authors askingto take part, which is wonderful, and I say that I’ll keep going for as long aspeople (I also interview agents, publishers… really anyone who wants to talkwriting!). In between I am getting braver with the authors I ask too – I haveMark Billingham as my no.200 (he came to crime writing after being tied up in ahotel room and knew how fear felt! – I met him when volunteered at OundleLiterature Festival March 2011, on a panel with Michael Robotham – and I got tochat to them in the ‘green’ room, a memorable evening!) then at Christmas Ihave novelists Sophie King, Val McDermid and Stella Duffy (with Kate Long andTrishia Ashley before then, and Katie Fforde in March). But really every author(etc.) I speak to has a wonderful story to tell and it’s amazing how differentanswers can be gleaned from the same questions. :)

Sue: That is such an impressiveline-up. And how lovely that you don’t turn anyone away! Do you believe indieauthors need more help than traditional authors in getting their work known?

Morgen: Technically, I’d say yes but I am finding that eventraditional authors are doing chunks of their own marketing; mainly from whatthey say on Twitter and Facebook (perhaps why they’re so willing to beinterviewed!). I’m sure like most industries, staff at publishers are eitherbeing let go or not replaced when they leave so there aren’t the people orbudgets to go round. It’s a well-known fact that the ‘cream’ of authors keep theindustry going and pay for the other authors taken on. Even in the short time(six years – when I signed up for my first creative writing class) I’ve beentaking notice it’s changed from nigh impossible to get a publisher to nighimpossible to get an agent. The ones I’ve spoken to though (four at Verulam andWinchester Writers Conferences in Feb and July respectively) have wanted morecrime and historical so there’s still a need out there, just (in the main) forspecifics. Of course, unless they’re genre-specific, if an amazing story hittheir desk they’d be more inclined to sit up and listen. So I guess the trickis writing that story (I hadn’t in all four cases)!

There was a question back there, wasn’t there? ‘Yes’ is theanswer I should have given, because indies don’t have the support network toback them up but just looking at the successes of indies (US: Joe Konrath UK:John Locke etc) a lot comes down to social networking so more of a levelplaying field (cliché alert, sorry about that) these days.

Sue: Yes, the publishing world ischanging every day, it seems. If you could interview anybody connected withpublishing in the world, who would it be? And what would you ask him/her?

Morgen: I’d LOVE to ask Kate Atkinson. She’s my favouriteliving author (other favourite was Roald Dahl – so thank you for that honour inyour introduction! (I didn’t know that when I wrote it)) and I nearly got to meet her a few months ago but I visited her events page and foundshe was at a bookshop local to my mum’s (Chorleywood, Hertfordshire – Iactually volunteered at the literature festival last November, that was fun) acouple of days beforehand, then jetting off to the US. Since then she’s been toGermany andthat’s about it. She did kindly release the hardback of ‘Started Early, Tookthe Dog’ on my birthday this year. :) Maybe with connections made with theaforementioned authors I might pluck up courage and contact her. Perhaps forno.300. :)

Sue: You HAVE to contact her! You’re a gifted author yourself. How have youfound Smashwords as a publishing platform and would you consider trying thetraditional publishing route?

Morgen: Ah, thank you. :*) I’d read so much on LinkedIn(Twitter, Facebook etc) about people’s experiences of eBooking; some saying itwas a breeze, others struggling with some of the latter turning to the‘experts’ to assist. The longest parts of the process for me (apart from thewriting, editing, re-editing, sending to my editor, agreeing / changing etc)was reading the 70+ style guide that Smashwords provides (free). Because I knewit was so long (comprehensive; lots of screen prints) I went with Smashwordsfirst. The plan was to then go straight on Amazon (which I’m assured is easier)but I’ve been hit by NaNoWriMo since then soI guess it’ll be early December. One thing I’d been quite annoyed about beforeI became involved with eBooks myself was the cost of some top-name eBooks. Justbecause they are known already and have a following it’s a bit much to expecttheir readers to fork out almost the same price as a paperback (and in somecases the hardback!) for an electronic version. (I doso agree with you). Fair enough, the mainstream (top publishers) aregoing to cost something to get a designer for the beautiful cover (although ifthe book’s out already they’ll have it digitally anyway) but the rest isminimal. No distribution costs and it’ll be the same expense for one personbuying it as a million. Some authors aren’t happy either (although I’m sure thehigher royalties are nice) but they don’t have a say, it’s down to thepublishers. I do think they’re beginning to realise how many good books thereare out there for not a lot (as far as I know Joe and John charge $0.99 fortheir fiction – mine are free or $1.49) and hopefully the price will berevised. But then I guess if you’re a (picking a name out of the air) StephenKing fan you’ll pay whatever for the convenience of having his new book on yourKindle. Anyway, off soap box now.

Oh yes, it was a two-part question wasn’t it. Although Ilove having control of my output if an agent and publisher said they wanted toput my books on to shelves I’d love to see them out there. I suspect that someof my writing isn’t particularly commercial so if I could have sometraditionally published (though I suspect having slated the publishers earlierthat may take a little longer to happen!) and eBook the rest that would bewonderful.

Sue: What are your writing plansfor the future?

Morgen: I’ve quit my job, leaving at Christmas, so it’llstep up a gear from then. I have plenty of content (this NaNoWriMo is my fourthand I wrote another novel between the first and second) with LOADS of shortstories to compile into anthologies. So once NaNo 4 is done (or at leastNovember finishes – all too soon, I’m currently 21 days behind!) it’ll be allsystems go – my current 7 items on Smashwords to be listed on Amazon then edit,edit, email to Rachel, edit others while she edits first and so on… get aproduction line running… whilst submitting stories and articles to magazines,competitions, websites etc. I also record a weekly podcast which is eitherhints & tips, red pen critique or reading short stories (the latter is anew feature) so there’s plenty to keep me out of mischief. Oh, and I run twowriting groups and belong to two others. My mum said to me a few weeks ago,“Don’t let writing take over your life”. I didn’t like to tell her she was ayear or so late. :)

Thank you Sue, it was fun being on the other end of the mic.

It’s a great pleasure, Morgen. Andgood luck with your new ventures, I’m so certain that we’ll be basking in yourglory when we name-drop in the future!

Contact Morgen:

Blog: http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

eBooks: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/morgenbailey

email: morgen@morgenbailey.com

Excerpt: I was tempted tosend The Threadbare Girl (part one) as it’s one of my shortest pieces but it’squite dark (and is a self-contained eBook so your readers can take a look forthemselves). I went for something a little more cheerful…

‘Over’ (the first story from ‘Story A DayMay’ eBook anthology)

“Over,” I say, and my dog and I cross the road. Overnight,after oversleeping, I’ve become overcome with cold. I’m usually overrun withchores but I’m taking it easy today. A contrast to yesterday, blitzing myovergrown garden; now my pavement is overcrowded with overfilled brown wheeliebins and strong, green gardening bags.

I look in the dictionary and have never heard of ‘overhand’.Wikipedia tells me it’s a boxing term and a knot, and I’m not a violent personbut right now I’m angry. My neighbour’s extension has gone over and above whatwas promised to me; it’s already overhanging the light into my south-facinggarden.

I head to the bank to check that I’m not overdrawn, notdipped into my overdraft, then buy some over-the-counter medicine before thiscold overpowers me. I think I’ve been overcharged. On the way home, anotherneighbour calls me over. So, switching off my iPod’s classical overture, wetalk over the fence, while his Englandflag flutters overhead.

To say I’m fat is an overstatement. I’m a little overweightand could do with an overhaul of my eating habits, but it would be anoversimplification to say 5-a-day fruit and veg would do it. I often overlookthem at the supermarket, an unhealthy oversight. My body’s been doing a bit toomuch overtime at the moment so it really wouldn’t hurt.

An early night is also long overdue but I have plans tonight(I’m having writing friends over) so an afternoon nap will have to make do.

My back is complaining, it does that a lot. When I go topick something up it says, “don’t overdo it” but I never listen. Tomorrowmorning I shall carry stacks of Red Cross-donated books which I’ll tip on tothe counter and their shiny covers will slip against each other and overbalanceon to the floor.

In the afternoon, what energies I have will be used to emptymy loft (pre-electrician’s visit), bring down the boxes of already-boughtpresents that will overwhelm my mother in September, when she’s easily pleased,although I suspect she overplays it, oversells for my benefit. My aunt, hertwin, will just look overawed, carrying her overladen gift bag into thekitchen, putting her Andre Rieu DVDs with the others. An überfan.

Then Wednesday lunchtime my job sharer will read me herhandover notes as our shifts overlap, my turn to work two and a half daysbefore another weekend arrives.

I usually travel overseas but my friend and I are busy sowe’ll wait a year. She’s off to Mexico,me to Winchester. I’ve never beenthere before so I’ll need to pay attention so I don’t overshoot the junction,overstep the mark on the map for the venue.

If I played cricket I think it would be underarm notoverarm, that’s just how I throw; like a girl.

Radio Litopia’s AgentPete calls me an overachiever but Ilike to think I’m just overjoyed with all things literary. We chat duringSunday night’s Open House then our Skype connection is terminated before Ioverstay my welcome. I live and breathe writing, albeit stuffily through a redoverblown nose. I sneeze over and over again.

Having over-egged today’s prompt, this ditty is over. Well,anymore would be overkill, wouldn’t it?

New Novel

2011-11-22T16:29:00.001Z

If you're a published author you'll understand how relieved I am that my new novel has found a home. No more thinking about publishers or submissions, or synopses or....!!!

Etopia Press have accepted my new novel "Hewhay Hall". That's what it's called now - let's wait though until after the editing!

Take a look at the Wordle to get a quick peak.

Brilliant new author - Kiran Hunter. Review and Interview

2011-11-14T18:54:00.001Z

Watch the grapevine carefullybecause you’ll be seeing a lot of Kiran Hunter (http://kiranhunter.com/about/) in thenear future.

As you’ll see from the blog, Kiran’sbeen writing for a long time but has only just decided to “unleash” all thatlatent writing talent. Watch out! Kiran’s story, Bedevil (http://kiranhunter.com/taste-it/) hasjust been published by EtopiaPress (http://etopiapressblog.wordpress.com/).

This is my review which I posted on the Amazons:

This short story is immensely readable and entertaining.

Kiran Hunter proves to be a wizard at the writing craft, creating well-rounded, memorable characters in few words - characters that I'd very much like to meet again. Gareth inherits a house he's never seen and has no idea of its sinister history. In order to save his cooling relationship with Tim, he moves into the house in the middle of the countryside to avoid the temptations of city life, unaware of who, or what, lurks in the walls of the crumbling abandoned house, nor what its intentions are.

The cover of "Bedevil" is a perfect fit for this brilliant story. Kiran Hunter plays with the reader like a cat and brews the horror like a gathering storm. I would love to see the sequel, if there is one, and I would definitely like to see Gareth and Tim again - I miss them already.

See? I have the feeling this is just thestart of something good. And what I specially liked is this is an M/M story with a different slant to the usual "run of the mill". Definitely unusual. Mind you, in the interview after the cut you'll see that Kiran enjoys "breaking the rules" so I shouldn't be surprised.

Right, now I’ve got Kiran in myclutches, so to speak, I’m going to take advantage of the situation (steady,now) and ask some snooping questions:

Sue: Am I right in saying thatBedevil is an M/M paranormal suspense? Is this an unusual genre?

Kiran. I think we’re just more usedto seeing paranormal and M/M romances,perhaps. This story errs towards the sinister rather than the romantic. InBedevil the main characters, Gareth and Tim, are already in a relationship… arocky one… and it might just get rockier. Bedevil is the first part of a story abouttrying to make a relationship work – findinga way for each other’s differences to… well, not make a difference! It is also about embracing ideas that youmight immediately dismiss.

Sue: I hope my review will promptlots of readers, but for anyone still hesitating about buying it, what can yousay to them?

Kiran: I think Bedevil is a little different. It’s paranormal, but still very much of thisworld. There are no angels or faeries for instance, although there is a demon. But we all have demons…don’twe?

Sue: As I said above, I have afeeling that Kiran Hunter has a lot more fiction just waiting to be launched onthe reading public. Any hints about what’s coming?

Kiran: The follow up to Bedevil (workingtitle Devilment) is in progress as we speak and I am mid-way through writing anM/M contemporary suspense. There may be more of a ‘romantic’ element to thecontemporary story – but this time the themes are trust and control.

Sue: Horray! It's wonderful newsthat there’s going to be a sequel, I hoped there would be.

Tell us a couple of things aboutKiran that’s not on your blog.

Kiran: I can’t drive. Or to beexact, I can drive – I just enjoydriving fast. Too fast. It’s a good thing I don’t have a license LOL.

I’m a damn good cook. My idea of aperfect evening is to have a good meal by candlelight (my dining room is fullof candles and glass lanterns), with my closest friends, and with plenty ofwine.

Sue: You should live in Portugalif you like driving fast LOL. You'd be right at home. Is there any author whose writing style you admire(and perhaps would like to emulate)?

Kiran: I’m a big horror reader, andI also enjoy darker psychological stories. I like Clive Barker’s writing stylevery much.

I like writers who break rulesrather than do what everyone else is doing. I like writing that hits a nerve,or makes me think, or changes my mind… or turns me on when I’m not expectingit… I’m not so keen on happy endings, I’d rather be left wondering – at leastfor a while J

Sue: Your two main characters inBedevil are Gareth and Tim. If you invited them round to spend the day withyou, how would you keep them entertained? (hee hee)

Kiran: Well, keeping Garethentertained would probably be fairly easy… although I think I’d be happy forhim to keep me entertained with astory or two ;-) … but I’d like to get Tim to loosen up a bit, he’s woundfairly tight. As I said, I like to cook – so perhaps a meal and plenty of winewould get him to relax and open up a bit.

Sue: Tell you what, I’ll keep Timentertained. I ♥ Tim (except I don’t think he’d be too interested in me). Tellme, what’s on your tbr list at the moment?

Kiran: I have Tarantula by ThierryJonquet waiting for me on my Kindle. I’m also looking forward to the release ofThe Hun and The General by fellow Etopian author, Tristram La Roche. I’m luckyenough to have had a sneak peak and I love what I’ve seen of Attila – he’s amore complex character than you might expect… and I like that… (Lucky Kiran – I’mso looking forward to that release. Click here to see Tristram's announcement).

I’m really into novellas and shortstories at the moment. I find I only have time to read in short bursts andquickly lose the thread with novels these days. It would be good to see moreshort stories available in ebook form, although they currently compete with thousandsof low priced novels. I also like the idea of episodic or serial short stories– so if you enjoy the story, and like the characters, you have something moreto look forward to without having to wait the length of time it would take forsomeone to write the next novel. Maybe I’m just a little impatient J

Thanks for having me Sue, I’m gladyou enjoyed Bedevil – it’s just the beginning….

Buy links:

Amazon US

http://www.amazon.com/Bedevil-ebook/dp/B00656WA74/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1320947656&sr=1-1

Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bedevil-ebook/dp/B00656WA74/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bedevil-kiran-hunter/1107144605?ean=2940013578333&itm=1&usri=kiran%252bhunter

All Romance

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-bedevil-638236-140.html

Right. I'm going to do NaNoWriMo. And I'll pay a forfeit...

2011-10-31T15:40:00.001Z

Right, that's it. Time to stop all this mucking about. I'm up to 17k words with my WIP "When the Moon Fails" and I've come to a complete, utter halt. Stopped. So, to get me back into gear, for the first time I'm going to take part in NaNoWriMo.

I need chivying along (bullying more like) and I'm determined to say I managed 50k words by the end of November (no, I won't count the 17k I already have). That'll give me 65k words. Tell you what, if I don't manage it, someone give me a forfeit. Any suggestions?

Just think - this time next month...
Anyone like to join me? I'm KatieR there (don't ask me why - I registered with that moniker about ten years ago and never looked at the site again).

Paranormal Anthology for Charity published

2011-10-27T12:03:00.002+01:00

Isn't that a lovely cover? I adore it :)

These anthologies are the brain child of Catrina Taylor and Sarah Barnard who is responsible for Ethics Trading.

This is what Catrina Taylor said about the anthology when she announced its launch on Google+:

This series was born on March 13th, 2011 when I approached a group of talented authors and asked if there was something we could do to help. In the next two weeks the first book, With Love was published.

We selected Medecins Sans Frontieres aka Doctors Without Borders because of their long reach and established history of helping people in need, worldwide. Shortly after the released the first book, there were requests for more. After discussion between The Writing Network and Ethics Trading, we determined what errors we had, throwing 17 stories into a single anthology and we came up with a new guidelines. Since then two more contributions have been published, Dawn of Indie Romance and now After Dark.

Every story, cover and piece of art is donated to the series. The money from the sale of the books is donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Buy the book for just $3.99 from: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98239
http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Dark-ebook/dp/B005Y48I1U/

Oh! Did I mention that my story, "An Act of Kindness" set in Lisbon is in it?

If you do get the book, please let me know what you think of it :)

TRR "Yes!" PARTY

2011-10-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

This looks like a load of fun and there are all kinds of prizes. Take a look! http://www.theromancereviews.com/event.php

I'm off...Ann Tracy Marr's here

2011-10-18T09:28:00.001+01:00

Hello, there,readers. Do you miss Susan Roebuck? Catch her over at Regan Taylor's blog thisweek. http://regantaylorsworld.blogspot.com. She is doing a blog tour – I am thelucky writer who gets to guest host here this week.

I am Ann TracyMarr, another Awe-Struck author. I write paranormal Regency romances – Regencybecause they are set in Jane Austen’s era, and paranormal because King Arthuris no longer a myth, but history. Yes, Arthur was real. He set up the RoundTable, built Camelot, argued with Merlin, and did his best to make Britainfunction as one country. After Arthur died, the Round Table took over runningthe show for whatever king or queen happened to come to the throne. Eventually,time got around to the Regency era, when mad King George (the one America beatin the Revolutionary War) was falling off the throne and his son, also named George,was named regent. So in my books, the Round Table still runs Britain. There’s afew other changes, most significant being that Merlin’s magic is available.

Since I am doingSusan’s blog, I am at her command. She requests that I tell you five thingsabout me that you do not know. Lordy, lordy, can I come up with fiveinteresting things? Here goes – you decide if I am a bore.

1) I am funnieron paper than I am in real life. Just ask my daughter, who thinks I amdisgusting.

2) When I wasreally little, I scribbled with soap on our neighbor’s basement window. Youcouldn’t see through the window and I was as proud as proud could be.

3) He waspicking on my brother, so I beat him up. I was in kindergarten and he was in 5thgrade. The school principal called my mother and said, “Ann was a little tigeragain.” Please note she said, “Again.” My mother swore to it.

4) It was meTPing Bob Ash’s house. It was also me sliding behind the bushes so the cop carcruising down the street wouldn’t see me. And it was me falling in thewindow-well. Naturally, it was me using crutches for the next six or eightweeks while my knee healed.

5) I grew up tohave a smidgeon of common sense. Even if my brothers don’t know (or won’tadmit) it.

There. You havefive things that most people don't know about me. Do I pass muster?

Sue’s secondrequest is that I tell you five things about a pair of my lovers that may notbe apparent when you read their book. This is a little harder than the firstassignment. Which of four sets of lovers would you like to hear about?

1) Lady Marthaand Lord Brinston, who fought the classic male vs. female battle until Marthawon and married Brin? That is Round Table Magician.

2) How aboutAdrian Hughes and Margaret Ridgemont? They were headed for tragedy, having metjust before she married James Treadway. Cry your eyes out for two lovers whocan never be together… except fate (or something) steps in and saves the day inThwarting Magic.

3) I likeKatherine Scoville and the Earl of Shelton. Alex is so stubborn. If he believedthe world was flat, he would insist that Columbus fell off the edge rather thanadmit the world was round. Ignore the existence of the Bahamas – the world isflat. End of discussion. Thank Arthur that Katherine sticks to her convictionsin To His Mistress, otherwise, Alex would end up miserable.

4) Or I canintroduce you to Sloane Johnstone and Sarah Frampton, who will show up in Keeperof the Grail.

Vote for numberfour, please.

Oh, you want tohear about Sarah and Sloane? Good choice. Here they come.

1) When she wasyoung, Sarah and her brother, Richard, were in the nursery, playing knight anddamsel in distress. Typical boy, Richard decides the poker makes a dandy sword.Although it is a bit heavy to slay dragons, he brandishes it about while Sarahcringes against the fireplace fender, shrinking from the fire breathing dragon.The coals in the fireplace endanger his damsel; Richard slays the fire andcoals roll onto the hearth rug, where they smolder. At Sarah’s alarmed cries,the maid rushes from the next room, still holding a pair of half darnedstockings. She picks up the rug and throws it on the fire, where it smokes andmakes a dreadful smell.

You don’timagine their father was pleased, do you? No, Hercules Frampton, never thecalmest man, goes through the roof. He is going to tan Richard’s hide--thatwill teach the boy not to play with fire. Sarah, more alarmed by her father’sanger than by her brother’s attempt to burn the house down, says that Richardwas not at fault. It was she, Sarah, who poked the fire and made the coals fallout. So Richard doesn't get whipped. Instead, Sarah has to put in an additionalhour of labor per day stitching her sampler.

Sarah learns howto protect her siblings from an unreasonable parent. Richard absorbs – and usesand abuses – the knowledge that Sarah will save him from himself. Sarah hasforgotten this incident, but it sets the tone for her relationship withRichard, which has tremendous impact on the plot of Keeper of the Grail.

2) Sloane hasnot forgotten his lessons in life: he has merely misplaced the tools for usingthem. His grandfather, a wise old man, recognized Sloane’s solemn nature andtaught the boy to enjoy the absurdities that sprout like dandelions in theroses. For years, Sloane used this lesson to keep life light, but when calamityand disaster crawl on top of responsibility and problems jump to teeter at thepeak of the pile, he bogs down. Sarah helps him recover the joy.

3) Sarah canhoot like an owl while Sloane can imitate a scared mouse’s squeak toperfection. Think of the possibilities for a game of hide and seek. Regencyprim and proper is for public appearances, not necessarily for intimatemoments.

4) Sloane hasn’tchased a girl in his life. He hasn’t needed to. If there is anything moreattractive than a bad boy, it is a man who oozes power and personality. Hisfirst conquest was Laurel Renders, four-year-old daughter of his tutor. To getSloane's attention, she complained to her father that he dipped the tip of herbraid into the inkwell. Not having any self-torturing hangups, Sloane took hiswhipping like a man and wrote Laurel off as a nuisance.

5) Sarah can sewa button on neater than Sloane, but he can smell cinnamon from twenty paces. Itall ties in with their interests. Sarah believes that if you have to dosomething, you might as well enjoy it. As for Sloane, there is no shame inenjoying sweets.

So there arefive things about Sarah and Sloane that are not exactly obvious. What isobvious? Well, here are two people who don't have a lot in common, other thanboth living in 1814 England. When they hook up, it is for a purpose. It is nottheir fault that their personalities mesh so well or that great events sproutunder their feet. You can't even blame them for the behavior of the BansheeBrigade, but you can applaud Sloane's handling of that feisty clique. Finally,a hero who can manage them! The book is titled Keeper of the Grail. Ithasn't been born yet, but publisher willing, that will be soon.

If you arecurious about the Banshee Brigade, they parade through every one of my books.

~~~

Ann Tracy Marrwrites award-winning paranormal Regency romances. To His Mistress, thethird book in her Banshee Brigade series, debuts in paperback October 25. Keeperof the Grail is in the works. A computer consultant in the Midwest, Marrlives with her husband, two cats, and plots that bounce off the wall.

Visit her at www.anntracymarr.com

Buy her books athttp://www.awe-struck.net/authors/ann_tracy_marr.html

Round TableMagician Ebook ISBN: 978-1-587496066

ThwartingMagic Ebook ISBN: 978-1-587496479

To HisMistress Ebook ISBN: 978-1-587497209

Keeper of theGrail Awaiting release

Can Someone Explain It?

2011-10-17T11:54:00.001+01:00

You'd have thought that life should be getting easier, not harder, wouldn't you?
Yet despite the great advances in education, information and technology, we're in what I can only describe as "a helluva financial mess". And I've yet to read anything coherent to explain reasonably why it's happened.
Portugal's budget deficit clocked in at 8.4 per cent of GDP in the first half of the year, much lower than the 5.9 per cent expected of it and we have a financial debt hole deeper than the Atlantic Ocean. So, in order to fill it the Government has announced its austerity measures for next years. And who's getting hit for it? Those in the lower wage bracket and those on pensions.
Um...forgive me for my ignorance, but who got us into the mess in the first place? Surely not those getting punished for it now. And just exactly where did those huge debts originate? Did the pensioners not balance their dwindling bank accounts properly?
Has nobody thought about those companies who are raking in the huge profits and paying their CEOs a fortune far more than they deserve? What about the tax-dodgers who sail their yachts in the bay of Cascais every weekend?
Surely, in a just society (and I'm sorry if I sound Leninist, but I can't help it) those who make the mistakes should pay for them. But maybe that's just me.
So, who spent all the money? Won't someone tell me?

Awe-Struck Publishing / Mundania Press Authors' Blog Tour

2011-10-16T14:38:00.002+01:00

Today is the final day of our Blog-Tour which has been a great success for both authors and readers looking for new and exciting books.

My final guest is Ann Tracy Marr who has an impressive array of books published with Awe-Struck and Mundania Press . She writes tales of the paranormal set in Regency times and they are becoming ever more popular.

Apparently she gets so wrapped up in the Regency era when she's writing that she forgets about all else which must be a blissful feeling.

Just to give you a taster, here's a quick blurb from Round Table Magician which I think looks like a marvelous roller-coaster of a read:

Twist legend into truth. Merlin's magic is not myth, but history.

In a Regency era England influenced by Camelot and the Round Table, a girl with an impish streak finds trouble. Taken hostage by a smuggler, Martha Dunsmore is saved by an 'angel'. She finds him again at a country house party.

Clandestine magician, espionage expert, heir to a duke, Brinston is the perennial hero--and Martha's angel. On a mission for the government, Brinston has no time for dalliance. Convincing Martha that espionage should be left to the male pushes his patience, if not his magic, to its limits. When he ignores her, she mocks and challenges him.

Together they must trap a thief before madness becomes murder and treachery becomes treason.

For more information on Ann Tracy and her books, see her website: http://www.anntracymarr.com/

or visit her Facebook page

Pay it Forward Blogfest - thanks Alex Cavanaugh

2011-10-14T18:50:00.001+01:00

Alex Cavanaugh must be one of the world's most successful bloggers. One of his keys to success is that he's a generous host and never tires of promoting other blogs.
He and Matthew (below) have organized today's blogfest. From the list of participants below, these are the three bloggers I've discovered today.

1. Matthew MacNish at: QQQE (go and find out what that means :) ) Matthew is another tireless writer's advocate. He aims at encouraging and helping new writers from falling into the traps he encountered when he was starting out.
2. Janice Phelps Williams at: Appalachian Morning I loved the name and the blog is full of art and stories. Creativity at its best.
3. Kathy Oliffe-Webster at: http://muskokariver.blogspot.com/Muskokariver Blogspot It has something of everything - writing (all kinds), life in Canada. And? Well, it's just nice to hear about Canada :)
After the cut, check out all the bloggers participating - there are some gems in there :)

It's Coming!

2011-10-14T11:19:00.000+01:00

Isn't that a lovely cover? It was done by Jude Robinson. Take a look at her beautiful artwork here

My story, "An Act of Kindness" is included in this anthology that will be released by http://ethicstrading.com/index.php?page=after-dark
in time for Halloween.

I'm so proud to be amongst such great authors who are also contributing.

Keep it in mind because all proceeds from the book go to charity: medecins sans frontieres

I'll let you know as soon as it's released.

Awe-Struck Publishing / Mundania Press Authors' Blog Tour

2011-10-09T12:25:00.001+01:00

Today's guest is another author from the Awe-Struck Publishing / Mundania Press blog tour.

I'd like to welcome Jennifer Cloud, author of several novels, most of which have won awards.

Take a look at her website which gives you all the information: Jennifer Cloud

Jennifer has co-authored a book with another Awe-Struck author, Regan Taylor (also featured here). It's called "Her Eyes" and will be available from http://www.awe-struck.net/ in the Autumn.

Like those before her, poor Jennifer has been the victim of my diabolical questions, but just see how well she handles them!

Sue: Write five things most people wouldn't know about you from just reading your blogs

Jennifer: Hmm. That's a hard one. I'm pretty open online. I'm not so open in person. Most people that know me away from the internet world, actually know very little about me. I don't tell them that I'm a writer or anything about my work. I used to tell people years ago and nothing good ever came from it. People would tell me about a book they'd like to write, although they don't read. They would ask for free autographed copies and hint that they might be worth something one day. They didn't really want to read it, just hoped for an investment. I would also get a lot of "then why haven't I heard of you" or the "I've got a great idea for a book. I'll tell it to you, you write it, and we'll split the profits." I just keep my passions quiet. It also helps that I've lived in four different states now. Old friends aren't going to bump into new ones. For someone to even know I write, they would have to look me up online or be a close friend.

Sue: Choose two characters from your own books and write five things about them that readers may not know from reading the novels.

Jennifer: That's also a hard one. Regan Taylor and I wrote "Her Eyes" together so we each have different insights into the characters. How about five facts most people don't know about the novel itself, "Her Eyes"?

1-The idea for the novel came from Regan. She had heard about a face transplant and we started discussing souls being connected to bodies. I thought the idea sounded like a Regan Taylor romance. She thought it sounded like a Jennifer Cloud horror.

2-I originally started "Her Eyes" as a novella. It was a little story about a woman with murderous rage who ends up being mutilated by a protective dog and the fun ensues after an eye transplant.

3-An editor wanted "Her Eyes" to be a chick lit story. That's right. I had a publisher interested but the editor wanted the story to have a chick lit slant because that's what was hot at the time. I didn't go with that publisher. By the way, that publisher folded.

4-Regan saved the novel. I was going to send this little novella to the recycle bin. I'm bad to do that. It's like deleting is a way of hiding my mistakes. Anyway, she read it and had all these wonderful ideas. We started writing the novel "Her Eyes" together.

5-You can't tell where one author starts and the other one ends. Our writing just flowed well together.

Thank you Jennifer. You're very lucky to find someone you can work with so well. It's a treasure that's rarely found.

Here's a little more about Jennifer:

She was born in Asheville, North Carolina. There she met her husband who encouraged her to write after finding a partial manuscript. She now resides in Missouri with her husband and two daughters.

She is the author of many novels in both print and electronic versions. She's also had two dozen short stories published and many novellas.

Magic Rising: Dragonfly, and Sweet Jane, now available. Coming soon, Blood Bonds and Call of Crows.

www.JenniferCloud.com

www.jlmccale.com

EPIC - Wowza!

2011-10-07T10:06:00.001+01:00

Coo! Look at that !

Awe-Struck / Mundania Press Authors Blog Tour - Jana Richards

2011-10-02T13:02:00.003+01:00

This Blog Tour is going so well - it's the first I've ever done and I hope it's not the last.

Today, I'm so pleased to welcome Jana Richards, such a great writer. Here's her acclaimed "Till September" book on the Awe-Struck site.

Sue: Welcome Jana. Tell us five things about yourself that most people on the internet don't know aboutyou.

There are probably more than five things thatpeople on the Internet don’t know about me! But I’ll try to keep it down tojust five.

#1. I was born and raised on a farm in Western Canada. They call Saskatchewan“The Land of Living Skies” and nothing could be more true. The sky goes onforever on the prairies, capable of changing from a startling, cloudless blueto an angry, tumultuous grey in the blink of an eye. The land is so flat that,as the old joke says, you can watch your dog run away for three days. Our farmwas fourteen miles from the small town where I went to school, so I spent manyhours riding the school bus. It could be very isolating living so far from townwith no close neighbors, and I left for the city as soon as I finished highschool. I still have a love/hate relationship with rural life.

#2. I love horse racing! I know virtuallynothing about the sport aside from the thrill I get when I see thoroughbredsthundering toward the finish line. What a rush! I’ve only had the opportunityto see live horse racing a couple of times, but even the Kentucky Derby on TVgets my heart pumping. I even like all the buildup before the race, and thetalk of jockeys and trainers. In fact, sometimes hearing the horses’ historiesis the best part. I have no interest in gambling on the ponies; I’m far toofrugal (a.k.a cheap) for betting. There’s just something about the beauty ofthe horses and their athleticism that calls to me.

#3. I enjoy yoga. I will I never claim to bean athlete in any shape or form, but I can do a decent Downward Facing Dog, andmy Warrior poses are pretty good, if I do say so myself. Some of the poses arechallenging, but I do them to the best of my ability, and that’s good enough. Yogathat helps me to get in touch with my physical self as well as my spiritualself.

#4. I’ve been married to the same wonderful manfor 33 years. And they said it wouldn’t last!

#5. I’ve had four full length novels and twonovella lengths books published, with another novella coming out on November30. Okay, that’s something anyone with an Internet connection could get from mywebsite at http://www.janarichards.netBut I’ll bet you didn’t know I almost gave up hope of ever being published, tothe point that I nearly quit writing entirely. However, the desire to tellstories is very strong, and persists even when it seems that no one wants tohear them. I carried on and now I can tell you that writing is my life’s work.My goal is that each book I write is better than the one that came before.

Sue: Choose two characters from any of your books and tell us five things aboutthem that might not be apparent from the books.

Hannah Kramer and Quinn Andersonappear in my Awe-Strucknovel “Till September”. Here are five things about them that may not beapparent from the books:

#1. Hannah married her high schoolsweetheart at eighteen, and settled into the life of a farm wife. Although sheand Peter had been close, she always felt a lack of passion in their marriage.Their marriage had also been missing a level of trust. Peter insisted onhandling all the business of the farm, refusing to hear her ideas or eveninforming her when debt threatened to put them out of business. After Peterdied, Hannah felt disloyal for even thinking of the faults in her marriage andin her husband. She pushed them to the back of her mind. Until Quinn came intoher life and made her feel the passion she’d been missing all her life.

#2. The scene in the excerpt of “TillSeptember” was inspired by own fear of heights. My husband was reshinglingthe roof of our house and I climbed up the ladder to bring him something. Andthen I found I couldn’t get down! This surprised me because I never used to beafraid of heights. As a kid I’d climb on the roof of the barn and up thehaystacks without fear. Hannah eventually overcomes her fear, but I have toconfess that I never have!

#3. Since he grew up without afather, Quinn fears that he would be a poor father-figure for Hannah’s sonRyan. But he loves the kid, and when it’s time for him to go, the pain ofleaving Ryan hurts almost as much as the pain of losing Hannah.

#4. Quinn has a phobia aboutflying. He doesn’t know how it happened; he was never involved in anynear-misses or accidents in a plane. His fear grew until one day when he wassupposed to catch a flight, he couldn’t make himself get on the plane. So he nowfinds himself driving across the country.

#5. Hannah has a secret yearning tosee more of the world than just her farm and her small community. But she feelsdisloyal for thinking about leaving, even temporarily. Quinn has seen much ofthe country, but longs for roots. Together, they can complete each other’s desires.

Sue, thank you for having me onyour blog today and for all the thought-provoking questions!

***

Check out the blurb for "Till September":

For the first time since herhusband’s death, Hannah Kramer can imagine herself with another man. But then she discovers the truth about QuinnAnderson’s reason for staying at the bed and breakfast at her farm. He’s there to buy farmland from her cash-strappedfriends and neighbors and resell it to foreign buyers. How can she love a man bent on destroying theway of life she loves? Will Quinnconvince her that he wants to build her community, not destroy it? Can he make her believe he loves her before timeruns out in September?

***

Here's Jana's biography:

Jana Richards has tried her hand at many writingprojects over the years, from magazine articles and short stories to full-lengthparanormal suspense and romantic comedy. She loves to create characters with a sense of humor, but also a seriousside. She believes there’s nothing moreinteresting then peeling back the layers of a character to see what makes themtick.

When not writing up a storm, working at her day jobas an Office Administrator, or dealing with ever present mountains of laundry,Jana can be found on the local golf course pursuing her newest hobby.

Jana lives in Western Canada with her husband Warren, along with two university aged daughters and ahighly spoiled Pug/Terrier cross named Lou. You can reach her through herwebsite at http://www.janarichards.net

***

It's been great having Jana on Lauracea today. If you'd like to contact her, here are her links:

Buy link for "Till September" at Awe-Struck: http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=Awe-Struck&cart_id=52781.13527&product=Till+September&return_page=&user-id=&password=&exchange=&exact_match=exact

Jana's blog: http://janarichards.blogspot.com

Jana's website: http://www.janarichards.net

The excerpt page on her website for “Till September”: http://www.janarichards.net/ExcerptsreviewTill.html

This is what my new novel's about

2011-10-01T15:38:00.000+01:00

There you are :)

Do you want to know how I did it? I'll tell you ONLY if you leave a comment - six comments and I'll give you the link. la-la-la-la (feeling wicked today)

How E-book Buyers Buy Their E-books

2011-09-28T12:18:00.003+01:00

This comes from the Smashwords site (here to see better ). But it's interesting to see. Well, sigh, get blogging folks!

Awe-Struck / Mundania Press Authors' Blog Tour - Regan Taylor

2011-09-25T13:27:00.001+01:00

It's week four of the Awe-Struck and Mundania Press Authors' Blog Tour. My, I never realized that my publisher had so many talented authors on his list.

Today I'd like you to meet REGAN TAYLOR who writes marvellously exciting and sexy reads.

Regan has been the victim of my awful "five questions", but before you take a look at her answers, let's hear a little bit more about her:

First of all, you can find her books here: http://www.awe-struck.net/authors/regan_taylor.html

From earliest childhood Regan was an avid reader and upon discovering Alexander Dumas and Charles Dickens she was hooked on books that carried the reader away to a different time and place. Preferring the quiet of her room and a good book to spending time with people she traveled far beyond those four walls. It was while working as a police dispatcher, first for the California Highway Patrol and then her local police department, she began to write fiction, primarily time travels and romantic suspense. In the spring of 2009 she returned to the day job she always liked best, working as a legal secretary. Although, curled up in her bunny slippers with her furfaced children, Mel, Missy and Bogie, while writing is one of her most favorite things to do.

After the "cut" you'll find out something "magical" about Regan. Take a look:

Sue: Write five things most people wouldn't know about you just by reading your blog/social media presence.

Regan:
a. I’m actually very introverted.
b. I have a good time being a legal secretary.
c. My favorite jobs were those working nights and weekends (the introverted thing)
d. I’m a highly intuitive tarot reader
e. I’m fascinated by ancient Egypt

Sue: Choose two characters from your own book/books (Mundania/Awe-Struck published - obviously) and write five things about them that readers may not know from reading the novels (you can choose five things each or five things between them if you like).

Regan: Hmmm, okay, that would be Kendrick Parker from Mistaken Bride and Molly Tanner from The Photograph. (You will learn more about Molly in With All Dispatch due out next spring).

Kendrick is based, in part on the modern day United States Marshal in my own life while he looks like the Marine Corps pilot I was engaged to when I met my Marshal. (Not to worry, the Marine left me, I didn’t leave him).
There is something about Sheriff Rick Hansen that Kendrick has wondered about and readers will find out about in book 3, Traveling Bride.
If one of my characters be brought to life, it would be Kendrick and he’d have eyes only for me.
Molly’s name is in memory of my kitty, Molly who, like Molly in the book had black hair and green eyes.
Molly has toyed with the idea of finding a way to journey where her roommate Carrie is currently living.

*****
If you'd like to know more about Regan and her books, here are some links:

http://regantaylorsworld.blogspot.com/
http://www.regantaylor.com/Regan's%20Books.htm
http://www.awe-struck.net/authors/regan_taylor.html

****

Regan's kindly given some information on her Bride series:

My bride series started off as what was meant to be Jenna and Brett’s story. Along the way though I discovered Brett had two brothers and a very close friend. Well I just had to tell their stories, you know?

This is my western series – my favorite books have always been westerns and time travels. Two of the Parker boys have some issues with trust and have built their own secure little worlds. But hey! A guy’s gotta have a wife, right?

Excerpt for Indentured Bride, Book 1 of the Bride Series

Walking through the door of the boarding house, Brett raised his hand in greeting to the man at the counter and escorted Jenna upstairs. He pushed open the door and stood aside for Jenna to enter ahead of him. She spied the hot bath as soon as they entered, as well as her satchel, which had already been moved into the room.
"Enjoy the bath, Jenna."
"Thank you, Mr. Parker." She stood there a moment, chewing lightly on her lower lip, unaware of how the simple gesture affected the man standing in front of her. "Um, well, good night."
She felt his gaze on her lips, the intensity making her feel like he'd actually kissed her. She resisted running her fingers over them, instead turning towards the door. "Oh, Mr. Parker, Brett?"
"Yes?" Suspicion creeping into his voice.
"The photographer, did you stop him from taking that picture?"
"Want to tell me why it was so important?"
"I did; I don't like having my photograph taken. Did you stop him?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Thank you. Thank you." She reached out towards his arm, catching herself just before she put her hand on it.
Taking note of her movement, Brett drew into himself, "I'll fetch you in the morning for breakfast. And Jenna?"
She looked up at him.
"Don't even think about trying to run off tonight ... I'll find you and bring you back."
She nodded, resigned to marrying this man and then hoping soon he'd seek an annulment. As she turned to close the door, his arms came around her and she tilted her head up to question his intent. Before she could utter a word, his lips descended to hers. His lips nibbled on hers, plying little kisses along the upper and lower while his hands massaged her back. Pressed firmly against his chest she felt her nipples begin to harden and without volition her lips parted to welcome his tongue into her mouth. Without thought, Jenna gave herself to the sensations this man evoked in her. She couldn't stop herself if she wanted to ... I do want to, I want to stop him, I want to, I want to ... the moan that escaped her lips seemed to startle them both into awareness. "I'll be by around eight to take you to breakfast. Sleep well, Jenna."

http://www.mundania.com/author.php?author=Regan+Taylor http://www.amazon.com/Indentured-Bride-Book-One/dp/1587496917/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=

****
And how about Regan's Treasures Antique Series?

My latest release with Awe-struck is The Photograph, book 1 of the Treasures Antique series. The series is set in nearby Napa, California. Well, nearby to me J. If you’ve ever been there you know Napa is an interesting blend of rural wineries and small town charm.

I’m sure I’m not the only avid reader, or even reader, who found herself imagining what it would be like to have one of our romance heroes come to life. Okay, I will admit, my personal romantic hero is in my life and has been so through good times, rough times, happy and sad. He was my first beta reader, a former Marine and U.S. Marshal. With The Photograph I took that imagination of having a hero walk off the pages in a different kind of way. You also meet a few other characters, one whose real identity is revealed in future stories. I recently signed book 2 of this series, With All Dispatch which has a special place in my heart because I wrote in the last days of my 22 year old kitty Molly’s life.

Oh! And you do meet my own kitty Maitai in the guise of Taister.

But on to The Photograph:

From the time Carrie Taylor discovered the magical worlds of romance novels, she has devoured them one right after the other. She not only thrilled to each new hero, one more dashing than the one before. Carrie clearly saw herself as each beautiful heroine waiting to be rescued by each daring hero. And then one day, she brought home a photograph. A very special photograph and suddenly her imaginary hero turned into a living and breathing man. Or did he? At one time Black Eagle scoffed at the girls of his village wishing on a falling star. And yet his one great wish, that of a woman of his own, was never realized. And then one night, he wished upon a star. Can the love of a man from the past help a modern woman with her modern problems in a modern world?

Backed her against the door, holding her firm in his embrace. "You are mine, Cassandra, mine and mine alone."

As the stunningly handsome blond-haired man took the dark-haired beauty in his arms, his oh, so sensuous lips coming closer and closer to her own, Cassandra knew he would take her in a passion that only grew hotter and hotter with each taking. She felt him hot and hard against her, leaving no doubt what he wanted of her. "Yes, Erek, yes. Now and always."

He reached for her, pulling her into his embrace, knowing this was the love he had waited a lifetime for. No man, no army could keep them apart. Never again would they be torn from each other. This would be a love for all time. "I love you, Cassandra. I will love you forever."

* * * *
Carrie Taylor sighed and closed her eyes as she held the book to her chest. "Why don't they make men like that in real life? Why can't I meet my own Erek? A man who's not only totally gorgeous on the outside with a fabulous chest and nice butt, but a really nice guy on the inside? A guy who you can tell anything to and he'll listen and help you do whatever it is you really want to do?"

While good for company on a dark, cold, rainy winter night, Taister's 'meow' didn't really answer her question. She scrunched the long-haired black cat's ears before turning off the light beside her bed. As she snuggled under the covers, she heard Taister's purr from the foot of the bed. At least he was faithful, not like that jerk Dean. "Dean Welman--what an absolute loser," she told the cat. "The porker. Taister, tell me this, just because I hung out with him--all right, dated him--am I a loser?"

When the cat didn't respond with more than a louder purr, Carrie thought back on the man she'd recently broken up with. Dean had come on all charm and kisses, promised her the moon and then went and two-timed her. Such was the story of her life. "Hell, he wasn't even that hot in bed!" Chalk up number--well whatever number he was. And come to think of it, he was definitely the loser. "I'm well rid of him, Taister, that's for sure."

Drifting off to sleep, Carrie replayed the last few chapters of Her Knight in her mind, seeing herself in the role of the heroine, Cassandra. Erek, of course, looked just like the model on the book cover. She could almost feel the soft velvet of the deep burgundy gown worn by Cassandra on that same cover, her cheeks warming at the thought of the bare-chested Erek with his long blond hair flowing over his shoulders, his powerful hands kneading her breasts. Erek was the best hero she'd read in a long time. As a dream lover, he was ideal. At least in her dreams someone loved her.

The alarm jarred her awake long before she was ready for it to be morning. Even the music from her favorite oldies station sounded way too loud when she wanted a few more minutes in the big four-poster bed in the castle with Sir Hot Bod Erek. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the pocketbook, her sense of doing the right thing and holding down a job demanded she get up and head into work.

Padding towards the kitchen, she found a note from her roommate Molly, who worked for a police department in the next county.

She read the note and sighed. "Man, Taister, things are getting worse at that job of hers instead of better. I really thought--well, hoped actually, that one of these days things would get better. It appears not."

Taister meowed up a storm while she tried to read the note; so much so that she was sure he was telling her if he didn't get his breakfast ASAP, life on planet Earth, as they knew it, would end.

"Okay, okay, little man, let's keep Earth in orbit another day. One can of the stinky, wet, fishy food coming up. Molly wants to get together for dinner. I sure hope it's good news for a change and not more BS from her supervisor. She needs to be catching a break and soon. Did you hear her talking about that crazy supervisor of hers the other day?"

The black cat continued his own little diatribe on how he was missing out on some of life's greatest joys because she had slept till the alarm and taken a shower instead of rushing to make his breakfast. After all, he had some serious cat things to do.

"Sounds like you didn't catch the entire 411 on it and, that you don't much care, either. I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying and just so you know, I've thought about it, long and hard and here's a news flash for you: Life as we know it will not end if you don't get something to eat, right here and now."

Taister grumbled, or at least that's what it sounded like and she couldn't miss the look he shot her. "And some people think cats don't know how to communicate. If there's one thing you can do, and do well, it's communicate."

Carrie finally put the dish down on the floor. Taister ate his requisite two bites and went off to engage in his own morning ablutions. "You sure have a tough life, Taister, a real tough life." He only gave her a quick glance before returning to his grooming. Carrie grabbed her coffee and headed off to get ready for work.

* * * *
Just a few short hours later at work, Carrie looked up from yet another mailing project and to her surprise, there stood Erek--in full knightly garb. While seeing his bare chest would have been mighty pleasing, the shining metal of his suit of armor and the way that metal triangle piece kinda sat there up front between his thighs sure conjured up some pleasant thoughts. "Sweet Carrie, I hath been looking for you."

"Erek?" The sight of her latest mental lust--break made her glad she'd chosen to wear her favorite sheer ivory shell under an ashes of roses blouse and thigh highs in lieu of pantyhose.

"Yes my love, 'tis your Erek." He took a step towards her, his hand outstretched in a courtly gesture. "I've come to take you for a ride, a short one because you are at your labor, so we will think of it as a prelude to our time tonight."

"Oh, yes, Erek. I like the way you think."

He turned to shut the door and began to divest himself of his knightly garments while he boldly strode to her desk. Seeing his intent and knowing the type of ride he planned, Carrie unbuttoned her blouse. Erek's eyes lit up in anticipation and he reached out a hand to cup her lace-covered breast. "Ah, sweet Carrie, I like this corset much better than those of yore." He lowered his lips to hers. At first he brushed them ever so slightly, tasting the sweetness there. "Ah my love, your lips are like the freshest berries. I hunger for the full meal."

His hand kneaded her breast as she reached upward to partake of a full kiss. His warm tongue was like honey and she melted to his touch. His hands pulled up her skirt, murmuring against her lips as he did so, "I love these hose you wear. The memory of them when we are apart makes me crave you all the more."

Carrie acknowledged to herself that she felt pretty sexy in her thigh highs along with her 'come do me' red pumps, but she wasn't going to bother Erek with that trivial knowledge.

"Carrie. Carrie?"

What the hell? She turned to find her co-worker Maria standing beside her, hand on her shoulder and no sign of Erek in the room. "What's going on? How long have you been here? Where's..." Oops, better not ask about Erek. I don't need anyone thinking I'm crazy 'cause I imagine my romance heroes being with me in the flesh. It was bad enough when I called out that one character's name when I was in bed with Dean right before we broke up.

"I've been standing at the door calling you for the past two minutes. Man, when you get into your work you really get into it. Although I can't imagine stuffing envelopes is that absorbing."

"It's not. I mean it is. Well not absorbing, you just need to be really sure you get them stuffed just right. And well, I was just thinking."

"Well, think on this, girlfriend. A bunch of us are trying out the new cafe up the street, Gazillios, for lunch. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, sounds good. Let me grab my purse."

During lunch the group shared the usual good laughs about some silliness that happened at the office in the morning with one of their co-workers. "Okay, so what did Visa do now?" Carrie asked.

"I can't believe you missed it!" Debra told her.

"Sorry, you know how it is when you get totally involved in work."

"Right. More like thinking about your latest romance novel," Maria whispered to her.

She play-slapped her friend. "So what happened?"

"Well, you know how Visa's been on this total man hunt?"

"Yeah. That's not exactly news. She's always sniffing out a new guy."

"This morning she comes strutting in wearing this bright red sweater two sizes too small for her and the reddest lipstick ever on her lips."

"I thought she was going to fall out of that sweater." Macy put in.

"Who's she after now?" Carrie asked.

"Anyone she can get!" Doug answered.

"Like you'd know." Maria jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow."

"I so would. She was after me a few months ago. Never wore that sweater, though," Doug mused.

"So if she did, would it have turned you straight?"

"Probably not. Still, it is something to watch." Doug chuckled.

"Why do you call her Visa?" Sandy, the new girl asked.

"Because like Visa, she's everywhere you want to be. Invited or not, there she is. In fact one time she even showed up at this funeral. Didn't know the guy who died or his family, just showed up because a bunch of people she knew were going."

"So do you give everyone nicknames?" Sandy sounded a bit nervous waiting to hear what they called her.

"Actually, no. Just Visa."

Downtown Napa--if you could call it a downtown--is a city full of quaint shops, charming restaurants and has an overall enchanting aura to it. Not too far from San Francisco, Napa sports every variety of eatery, but with the magic of a small town. The shops look like Christmas through the entire year. Little lights peep out of windows with pretty curtains, trees dotting the curbs, with full bushes in open spaces. Even though considered a city, it has all the ambiance of a long ago small town...quaint and cozy. The cafe they went to had the best quiche and smoothies, some of which Carrie saved to bring back to work with her for an afternoon snack.

As the group passed Carrie's favorite store, the Treasures Antique Shoppe, she made her excuses. "Maria, I'll be along in a few. I want to see if Mr. Merle has anything new in the store."

"Looking for some new treasures in Treasures?" She laughed.

"Yeah. Even though I split with Dean a month ago I still feel like I need something comforting or to do something special for myself."

The people who wandered into the quaint shop were always friendly and interesting, each with their own story about what they were looking for and why.

The owner, Mr. Merle, seemed to enjoy talking to each person, hearing their story and helping them find just the right item. He was an elderly man, seventy-five if he was a day. With his snow-white hair and twinkling blue-gray eyes, when Carrie spoke with him it was like speaking to a beloved grandfather or great-uncle. There was something magical, for lack of a better word, about him. It was almost like he came from another time and place. He always had a kind word, good advice and knew some intricate detail about every item in his shop. Maybe it was because he seemed to have this thing about bringing couples who really loved each other, like soul mates, together that Carrie believed him when he told her there was a wonderful man out there for her, just waiting to appear, even though all she ever seemed to meet were jerks like Dean.

They exchanged waves of greeting when she walked in, before he turned to complete whatever it was he was working on. The kindly old gent was always busy tinkering with something or other. She quickly spotted a large old trunk towards the back of the shop chock full of what looked to be some fascinating bits and pieces. Tea cups, ribbons, a few leather bound books, a spindle of yarn and papers filled it to almost overflowing. It reminded her of one of her pirate stories where the kidnapped maiden finds just the object she needs to escape her captor when they arrive in port.

She stood, gazing into space a moment trying to remember which it was, "Oh yes, Captive of the High Seas. Captain Black Jack Walters, wasn't he a hunk and a half?" she asked no one in particular.

The author described one of the most passionate love scenes she'd ever read when Black Jack and the heroine made love during a storm while at sea. She'd re-read that scene over and over and tried to entice the guy she'd been dating at the time to rent a boat during a storm so she could find out for herself just how intense sex could be under those conditions. He thought she was crazy and that was the last she saw of him. When she asked the next guy she dated about it Carrie had to settle for a waterbed in a hotel up in Reno to see if the rolls and pitches added to the experience. It didn't.

Digging deeper in the trunk, she came across a photograph. No ordinary photograph, this one was very, very old, one of those ancient tintypes used way back when. Like in the old west...which reminded her of a western she'd read a few months before about a woman who pretended to be a mail order bride and ended up married to the town's sheriff.

"They sure don't make em like Sheriff Rick Hansen, that's for sure." She drew a curious look from one of the other women in the store, causing Carrie to make a mental note to stop talking to herself, especially about her romance novel heroes.

She studied the old, faded photograph for a few minutes, unsure if it was truly so blurry or if it was just that the picture was kind of cloudy. Interestingly, one of the people in it seemed to stand out. He was either a proud Indian warrior or someone made up to look like one. Truth be told, it wasn't his firmly muscled chest, those pecs that made you want to reach out and touch them, something that almost always drew her attention. No, it was his eyes. Carrie had never seen such compelling eyes in her life. They were dark, like molasses, warm and comforting. Even in the photograph, they seemed to hold her, to reach out to her and make her want to be with him.

It wasn't like in her imagination. This felt so real. As if he called to her through time and space. Nor were they the same kind of feelings she had when she looked over the hunky models on the covers of the romances she devoured like candy. No, this felt different, far different than anything she'd ever felt before. Taking the photograph, she headed to the register to ask the Mr. Merle about it. At some point she'd heard he had an abiding interest in paranormal type happenings, not that she felt there was anything odd about the photograph itself. After all, it was just an old photograph. She appreciated him because he'd talk to her about the things that interested her. Mostly she talked to him about her romance problems--he always seemed to make her feel better.

"Hey, Mr. Merle. How are you doing today?"

"I'm good, Carrie, I'm good. And how's my favorite treasure hunter?"

"I'm just fine."

"That no-account fella Dean hasn't been around bothering you, has he?"

That was another thing she liked about Mr. Merle, he listened to her and remembered things she said. Too bad he wasn't forty years younger because he'd be the perfect date. Sir "D", her pet name for Dean, so named because he was--in a word--dickless, had dark hair and brown eyes and while he had a chest that made any red blooded female want to run her fingers over it, when it came to personality, his was non-existent. While it didn't bother her, he didn't deal too well with his Napoleonic height, or his scrawny butt and legs. His being so short didn't faze Carrie.

For that matter, his lack of height didn't seem to bother anyone but him. He seemed to think the world owed him for being short and he tried to be such a Casanova to make up for whatever lack he thought he had. He wasn't even that good in bed. It was always all about him. Talk about getting the old one-two punch. That was Dean. One thrust, two thrusts and he was done.

"No, he hasn't. It's really over, finally. At least I hope it is. He was calling a lot in the beginning, after we broke up, but he finally seems to have backed off."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Never did like that fella. There was something about him that just didn't seem right. I tell ya, Carrie, somewhere out there is the right man for you. He may just pop out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning."

"It would be nice, but so far nothing. So, Mr. Merle, I found this photo while I was poking around. I'd like to buy it."

Mr. Merle leaned over the counter and took a look at the photograph. It could have been Carrie's imagination, but it looked like he made some kind of hand signal over it, kind of like what a magician did at a party she went to as a kid passing his hand one way and then the other.

His smile seemed luminous when he said, "I'll tell you, Carrie-girl, one of my relatives took that picture years and years ago, back in--oh, I guess around the mid-1850's or early 1860's thereabouts. He was all up for being a journalist and then those tintype cameras came about and he just knew there was a career in that. Taking pictures. I always did like that picture."

"Oh, so it's not for sale?"

"No, I won't sell it to you, but I'll give it to you. There's something about it that makes me feel it should belong to you. It's yours if you promise to care for it real close."

"Oh, I will. Are you sure? I don't mind paying for it."

"Yup, that photo's been looking for a home for some time and I believe it found the right one with you."

Carrie happily brought the photo back to work and carefully placed it on the corner of her desk. She told herself she was being so totally cautious with it only because she'd promised Mr. Merle she would take care of it and remember to take it home with her that night. He had been most determined she immediately bring the photograph home with her. Yup, it was because she promised Mr. Merle she'd bring it home, certainly not because Carrie already imagined the Indian in the photograph coming to life and carrying her away. Several times during the afternoon, though, she picked it up to study it. Try as she might to take in all the elements in the picture, she always came back to the warrior. So much so that when she prepared to leave work for the day it was the first thing she picked up to bring home. With plenty of time before meeting Molly for dinner she stopped off at the local gift shop and found an antique-looking frame for her new picture.

They picked a little Italian restaurant with great antipasto for dinner. With its red-checkered tablecloths, wooden chairs with plump cushions matching the tablecloths, and old wine bottles with the basket-type bottoms holding multi-colored candles, it was, for Carrie, like she'd really gone to Italy. At least that was how her books described the cafes there.

She showed the photo to Molly as soon as they sat down to dinner, asking her roommate, "Isn't this the coolest photo ever? I found it at Mr. Merle's and he gave it to me."

"That's a pretty old photo. Carrie, look how funny the people look. It's like they all have bug eyes."

Carrie giggled in response to Molly opening her eyes so wide all of the white seemed to show. "Yes, but it's so cool. Look at the Indian, isn't he gorgeous? No, wait. More than gorgeous, there is just something so, so, so..."

"Uber hunky?"

"Yes! That's it...uber hunky about him."

Molly studied the photo a moment longer before replying. "You know, there is something kind of cool about him. Too bad he's not around anymore."

"Yeah...a guy like that would be a once in a lifetime kinda guy."

"Uh huh. Only I'd want him to be coming here, not me going there--I wouldn't want to live back then: no microwave, no electric coffee pot, no lattes, no pizza. Much as I'd like to be hanging with a gorgeous guy, I'm not about ready to give up my creature comforts."

"Mmm, I'd have to agree with you on that one, maybe."

"Maybe? Girl, think about it--no hot showers, no coffee pot with an automatic turn on in the morning, no cars, no cell phones..."

"Less stress, more time to have, well...quality time, cleaner air."

"Rough work-hardened hands, no sunscreen."

"Men who aren't afraid to be men."

"Ah...right...marital rights, you don't get the vote."

"Yeah, well I guess. Still, sometimes I do wonder what it would have been like to have lived in another time."

"From the faraway look in your eyes I can see you're already mentally traveling somewhere other than the present," Molly told her. "I suspect even with all those historical romances you've read you don't know what it would be like."

"No, not really. After all, the books are all made up. Well, yeah, there's historical research and such. But to have really lived it, not just imagined it would be so incredible."

"Is it the times or the men you are interested in?"

"Ooo-la-la, the men." Carrie paused a second before mentioning to Molly, "You'd also have no Julie Prince to deal with."

Molly sighed and spun her fork around her angel hair pasta. "That's true, although, I'd rather send her to the dark and dirty past. Life would be so much better, at least the work life, if I didn't have to deal with her."

"Which brings me to your note this morning. What did she do now?"

"Same ole, same ole," she sighed.

"Want to talk about it or let it go?"

"You don't mind hearing me bitch about her again?"

"Bitch about the Bitch? Hell. No. It makes me appreciate how easy it is at my job and besides, that's what friends are for. If it helps you deal with it, I'm all over it."

"Thanks. I do need to vent. I sound like a broken record. She just did what she usually does, again, yesterday. I go on my days off and someone else--that stupid blond bimbo badge bunny, Kris Harris, the skinny one who does all the officers, screwed up again."

"The one who if she stood sideways and stuck her tongue out would look like a zipper?"

Molly giggled. "That's the one. The Zipper."

"Why don't they do something about her?"

"Because the guys like her...well not like her personally, but I hear she does amazing things in the patrol cars when she's out on ride-a-longs. Do you know she's slept with twenty-one out of thirty-three straight male officers in the past two years and broken up two marriages?"

"Sounds more like a suck-a-thon."

"You got that right. Someone needs to put a leash on her."

"Or a chastity belt."

Molly snorted. "I knew I could count on you."

"So bimbolina screwed up again, and..."

"Of course I got written up for it. Eventually I'm going to remember that if the Zipper blows it, rather than blowing an officer, I shouldn't point out that I wasn't there on a particular day because Julie will write me up for not being able to take criticism and heaven forbid I show her that twit did it because then I'll get in trouble for trying to blame co-workers, even if it is their mistake. I gotta get out of there."

"Did you hear anything yet from the application you filed with county?"

"No." She sighed again, "The problem is, with all the bogus write ups chances are I won't get another job. Julie gets off on writing up those bullshit log entries, and since she hates to lose staff, it keeps anyone who wants to leave dispatch from finding a better job. I swear if someone took up a collection to get her laid I'd contribute twice the going rate. I'm just a bummer, aren't I?"

"Absolutely not."

"Bitching aside, I do have some good news."

"Give!"

"Since Shannon is about to finish her probation and her graveyard rotation I'll be going back on graves in a few weeks."

"And that's good because?"

"I won't see Julie or I'll hardly ever see her. Maybe a few minutes before my shift on Fridays and Mondays, but otherwise I won't have to see her. And, working nights, there's less chance of someone doing something I can get blamed for."

"I know you've always preferred graves, but I like having you around to do things on the weekends. Does Vincent know? Have you told him?"

"Not yet."

"Will it bother him?"

"You mean me working Friday and Saturday nights? Who knows? I mean, he knew I worked for the police department and did shift work when we first started dating. And I've covered a few graveyard shifts the past few months since we met. We'll see how it goes. Since I'll have seniority, of a sorts, after Maria and Sally, I can always move back to swings for the next rotation if it's a problem for us. Although our relationship better be moving to the significant other stage for me to put up with Julie through a weeks of swings."

"Well I'm glad you'll be out of Julie's radar for awhile." She drew in a deep breath and shook her head, "We're just a pair. I've got boyfriend issues and you have job ones. Somewhere between the two of us is someone who is issue free."

"Well let's hope we find her soon."

"Speaking of someone who is issue free, Visa pulled one of her stunts today."

"Oh, no. What did she do now?"

"Red sweater, two sizes too small, spiked heels--hooker heels--and this red lipstick that looked like something out of a bad 50's B movie."

"She so doesn't get it, does she?"

"No. I'll tell you, Mol, sometimes I swear the woman has no self-respect. She's like a cartoon character. Doug Mitchell said she was sticking her chest out trying to make it look like she had more in the cleavage department than is actually there. It was pretty funny."

"Any guys around to pick up on her show?"

"No." Carrie giggled. "We must have been her dress rehearsal."

"Well at least you have something to laugh about at work."

"Yeah, we do. I'm really sorry that things are so shi-tay at your job."

"Thanks. Carrie, I swear that woman stays awake at night thinking up the next hair brained thing she can come up with to disrupt someone else's life. Usually mine. Right now I just want to look forward to the weekend."

"I wish I had an answer for you. Short of just quitting, I can't think of anything. Although, hmm, you know, I have an idea. Let's fix Julie up with Dean and they can take off on a wild and wacky weekend together...and forget to come back. Maybe they just both need to get laid, you know?"

"That, my friend, was a visual I just didn't need. I do feel better for talking to you, though."

Later that night, Carrie grabbed one of her newest romance novels--a steamy regency she'd picked up the day before and headed to her room. Reading a bit before going to bed was a habit she had started back in junior high. Back then, it was Dickens and Dumas that held her attention. Especially Dumas. In high school she first 'discovered' historical romances and was hooked on Rogers, Woodiwiss and a host of others, buying each book as they came out. Of course, she had to hide them between her mattress and box-spring when she was at school because her mom would have had a hissy if she found out she read what she called "those smut books."

Even now she liked to read a bit before going to sleep and found when she read a good romance it definitely left her with sizzling dreams. Only tonight, when she climbed into bed to read her newest regency with a to-die-for viscount, she found she couldn't get far. Talk about a total first.

Instead she kept glancing over at the photo now sitting on her light pine nightstand. Tearing her gaze away from the picture, Carrie looked over her room.

It was everything she had always wanted...girlie and at the same time very sensual and conducive to sweet dreams, if not a few romantic nights. When she was dating anyway. It was a study in contrasts and yet the epitome of all she was. Pale lavender satin sheets covered the bed beneath a fluffy white down comforter. Bunches of pillows in all sizes and shapes, along with several stuffed teddy bears that reclined on them, decorated the head of the bed when she had the time to make it. The bed itself was a pine four-poster with matching nightstands, a dresser and an armoire she couldn't resist buying when she saw the mini-closet it held. Stained glass nick-knacks hung from the center curtain rod, covered by sheer lacy curtains on the windows. A bookcase--a very large and very full one--took up almost one wall.

Her favorite pastime was sitting in bed, vanilla votive candles scenting the air with herself dressed in a sexy nightgown, propped up against the pillows reading before she fell asleep. She usually drifted on to dreams of the hero in whatever book she was deeply engrossed in.

Tonight, however, she just couldn't stop looking at the warrior in the photo. Finally giving in to impulse, she picked it up and, after studying it for quite some time, placed a kiss on his image. She held it to her breast and thought about the fact that not since high school, when she'd read her first romance novel, had she done anything like that. Who kissed a picture? She set it on the nightstand, then picked it up again, giving the man in the photograph another quick kiss and could have sworn she felt...warmth...warmth?...coming from it. As she set it down, she wondered if she really saw the photograph give off a flash of light.

"Okay, I'm becoming certifiably weird. No more antipasto for me."

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b124291/The-Photograph/Regan-Taylor/?si=0

http://www.amazon.com/The-Photograph-ebook/dp/B00597RCGY/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311210803&sr=1-13

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html

Awe-Struck/Mundania Publishing Author's Blog Tour - Skyla Dawn Cameron

2011-09-19T19:16:00.000+01:00

This is the THIRD week of the blog tour. I never realized just what talented authors Awe-Struck and Mundania Publishing have (although I suppose I ought to since I'm one of them )

Today I'm so happy to host an incredible author who is winning prizes all over the place for her novels - Skyla Dawn Cameron. And since Skyla's not one to mince her words (ahem) I think you're really going to like this one.

First, though, here are Skyla's contacts:

Skyla Dawn Cameron Author, Artist, Editor: www.SkylaDawnCameron.com
New series website: www.ZaraLain.com
Mundania Press LLC: www.mundania. com

Sue: Write five things most people wouldn't know about you just by reading your blogs/social media presence.

Skyla: I try to be as honestas possible online, so I can’t say there are too many things people don’t knowabout me (other than my shoe size, which is US 11.5, by the way). But here we go...

1. The biggest thing isprobably that I am incredibly, painfully...shy. I’m that girl at the party whodoesn’t know anyone and sits in the corner, sipping her beer, smiling politelyas people attempt to talk to her but ultimately give up in favour of findingsomeone more interesting. Someone once suggested I was naturally a socialbutterfly because I do well networking online—AHAHAHAHA no. Talking to boysterrifies me. Asking strangers for directions? I’d rather end up lost. And Itried, once, to go out for a girl’s night, and vowed to never leave my house everagain.

2. I have a mild auditoryprocessing disorder. This means that if you call me, I have to focus very, veryhard on every word you’re saying, or I won’t understand you. I hear fine butinformation going from my ears to my brain seems to take the scenic route. I’mbetter if I’m face to face with someone, and I whip through communication whenit’s purely visual (email, IM, etc). But auditory is hard for me.

3. I used to read YAromances when I was about ten/eleven years old. No, not romantic suspense. Notparanormal romance. Plain old contemporary young adult romance from Silhouette.I...am still not entirely sure why because even then I liked books wheresomeone got violently killed early on, but I flew through those. Then I went onto V.C. Andrews, except my sixth grade teacher wouldn’t let me bring them toclass.

4. I do housework wearinga spangly bellydance hip scarf. I don’t think this one needs explanation.

5. I have a huge, nearlycomplete collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer cards from the collectible cardgame. They only made cards for the first three seasons before discontinuingthem several years ago. I have about 97% of the few hundred cards produced andof the dozens and dozens of games I played against people, I only lost once.Yes, I am that big of a nerd.

Sue: Choose two characters from your own book/books (Mundania/Awe-Struck published -obviously) and write five things about them that readers may not know fromreading the novels (you can choose five things each or five things between themif you like).

Skyla : Oh,let’s go for the two favourites, shall we? Three for each.

Zara Lain (Bloodlines,Hunter):

1. She makes a joke in the book about how she wasthe original Beatrix Kiddo with fangs instead of a katana, and you’d think KillBill would be a favourite film. It’s not. She saw it exactly once and theending made her cry, so she refuses to watch it again. (She may kill me fortelling you this.)

2. She has a girl-crush on Olivia Benson from Law& Order: SVU (so do I,actually).

3. She’s a cat person. She can’t have one as herapartment is often in danger of being blown up, but of the many charities shedonates to, one is a cat rescue group. She’s visited a few times...like, lateat night.

Nate O’Connor (Bloodlines)

1. He’s not entirely over his wife’s death. Ofcourse, he thinks he is...

2. He’s allergic to shellfish. This factors in to ahorrible incident from his abusive childhood, which I will not recount.

3. He knows how his mother really died (orsuspects).

About the Author: Award-winning authorSkyla Dawn Cameron has been writing approximately forever. Her earlystorytelling days were spent acting out strange horror/fairy tales with thehelp of her many dolls, and little has changed except that she now keeps thosestories on paper. She signed her first book contract at age twenty-one forRiver, a unique werewolf tale, which was released to critical and reader praisealike and won her the 2007 EPPIE Award for Best Fantasy. She now has multipleseries on the go to keep her busy, which is great for her attention deficitdisorder.

Skyla lives in Southern Ontario where she dabbles in art, is an avid gamer, and watchesBuffy reruns. She’s naturally brunette, occasionally a redhead, and willprobably go blonde again soon. If she ever becomes a grown-up, she wants to runher own pub, as well as become world dictator. You can visit her on the web atwww.skyladawncameron.com, on Twitter at www.twitter.com/skyladawn or onFacebook at www.facebook.com/skyladawncameron.

Bloodlines http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Bloodlines

After three hundred years of unlife, vampireZara Lain has seemingly done it all, and she's now making a living as asuccessful thief-turned-assassin. Her newest assignment seems simpleenough—kill the aging leader of the O'Connor Coven and his only heir, andshe'll have another ten million in the bank.

But in the dangerous world of the supernatural, few things are ever"simple."

When a massive assault decimates the continent's population of powerful witchesand warlocks, and its orchestrator has vampires being hunted down and captured,Zara realizes the tables have turned and now she'll be playing the hero. Forcedto join with a smart-mouthed fellow vampire, a demonologist who's also a fan ofhers, a recently widowed—and frequently brooding—warlock, and her best friend'smom, Zara's grudgingly willing to do what she can to save the day.

If only people would stop ruining all her outfits.

Hunter http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Hunter

Sometimes natural predators need to be kept incheck, and for that, there's Ryann David. Orphaned as an infant and raised byan exiled branch of the church to become a warrior for God, she and her fellowmembers of Venatores Daemonum have trained all their lives with only onepurpose: destroy all demons in the mortal realm.

But when Ryann and her team are sent to huntdown a vampire who has killed one of their own, a new world of danger,betrayal, and conspiracy greets her. Allied with an irreverent psychicdetective and the very monsters she was raised to kill, Ryann will riskeverything—her life, her faith, and her heart—in pursuit of the truth as theblack and white existence she knew turns a murky shade of gray.

Bloodlines Excerpt

Home sweet home.

I left Nate in the car while I got out and checked theparking garage. Sure enough, I found another sigil on a support beam in thesame waxy white. He must’ve scraped it on with...a white grease pencil orsomething? Maybe? The hell if I knew. It came off with the scratch of mythumbnail; I smudged a line right through it. Huh. Well, he’d probably redrawit.

“This doesn’t look like Heaven’s,” a muffled voice came fromthe car.

I strolled back, leaned on the car by the passenger sidewith my elbow on the roof. “Nope. We’ll go tomorrow. She’ll flip if she hearswe got attacked and possibly led people back to her anyway. Plus there was noway I’d carry you into her place.”

The door eased open and Nate climbed out. “Please tell meyou got the vampire killing book. I think I need it.”

I smacked him. Not hard, but I hit his still healing gunshotwound.

He gave a grunt and glared at me; I took the lead and headedtoward the elevator. ’Least he was probably too tapped out to throw a...

“Hey.” I spun to face him, walking backward with a skip tomy step. “So the fireball thing—can witches really do that? I asked Mish onceand she wouldn’t tell me.”

“I prefer lightning.”

My feet stopped so quickly I nearly tripped over them.“Seriously?”

He brushed past me. “No.”

Figures.

I hauled up the elevator door. “That’s the trouble with youguys.”

He followed me into the elevator and moments later we wererumbling up to my floor. “What is?”

“No sense of drama. At least I wear a cool coat and jumpfrom buildings. Have scary fangs that pop out. Paint myself in the blood of myvictims. People would actually go to see a movie based on me ’cause it’d beflashy and awesome. I impress people.”

Lips parted, brows pulled together in confusion, he turnedto look at me like I’d sprouted another head. “I removed us from thisdimension’s timeline and teleported us outside. How is that not impressive?”

“Right—and no one saw it. I didn’teven see it and I was fucking there. So who does a witch impress? More witches.The lot of you are too subtle. No wonder covens are so inbred—no one else wantsanything to do with you.”

The elevator shuddered to a halt. Muscles screamed a littleas I thrust up the heavy industrial door—I’d pulled something at some pointthat night. Or maybe I was still sore from the teleporting. If that was thecase, though, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell him.

“Have you gone suicidal? Are you looking tobe staked now, or attempting to irritate me to death?”

“Keeping you annoyed enough so that you don’t pass outbefore you get in the shower. I’d love to undress you, though would prefer yoube awake at the time. I can play naughty nurse with the best of them, butcaregiver to the helpless is so not my style.”

Nate stepped into my bathroom, flipped on the light, andthrew over his shoulder, “Mission accomplished.”

The door closed behind him.

Awe-Struck/Mundania Publishing Authors' Blog Tour - Sharon Poppen

2011-09-10T18:14:00.000+01:00

It's the second week of the Awe-Struck/Mundania Authors' Blog Tour. And today we have Sharon Poppen on Lauracea.

Hi Sue, Thanks for inviting me to stop by your blog and allowing me share my writing efforts with your readers. Opportunities like this are so welcome when it comes to marketing our books. The creative writing comes easy, but the submitting to editors and marketing is a challenge for me. I even enjoy the editing process. It’s just the administrative part of this writing world that I don’t enjoy. Except for book signings, I do love meeting my readers face to face. I’ve been writing seriously for about ten years and it still has the glow of excitement for me when my characters take shape and begin to play their parts in the plots I’ve imagined. It’s even fun when the characters have a mind of their own and you find you have to make a plot change to accommodate an aspect of their character that you hadn’t planned on. I’ve been asked some questions about writing, so I thought I’d share these with you now.

Find out about Sharon's books and take a look at how Sharon answers my very simple (ahem) questions :) Check out what she'd really like to be:

Sue : Tell us five things most people wouldn't know about you just by reading your blogs/social media.

I’d like to be an astronaut and fly off into outer space. I lived that dream vicariously in my novel ‘Regardless’ that is due for release in Sept. 2012. I’m a ‘Law & Order’ television show junkie (all versions – original, SVU, CI, LA). I drove late model super-stock racecars a couple of times. I love going to the movies (comedy, drama, sci-fi). I do at least one crossword puzzle every day.

Sue: Choose two characters from your own book/books and write five things about them that readers may not know from reading the novels.

I usually write in omniscient point of view so I think my readers really get to know my characters good points as well as their quirks and dark moods. But what readers don’t know is that in ‘Abby-Finding More Than Gold’, I used personal names and places from my past. Abby’s last name is my great-grandmothers maiden name. Mary Ann Barren had the same positive attitude reflected in Abby. Tommy Findlay was the name of my first boyfriend. Abby was born in Chicago and raised in a large Catholic family as was I. Her travels reflect my travels, except I made them in a nice air-conditioned car, not horse drawn wagons. Tommy’s time with the Indians results from my years in Albuquerque, NM and visiting cities like Encampment, Colo., along with many other cities in New Mexico and Colorado.

Sue: What is the biggest compliment you’ve ever received about your writing from a reader, editor, reviewer, etc.?

My biggest compliment was when my six year old granddaughter found my book in her mom’s car on the way to school, she took it and stood at the entrance to the school yard. As her friends came through the gate, she fanned the book saying, ‘Look. My grandma wrote this. All words. No pictures.’ For your granddaughter to feel such pride in my accomplishment still brings tears to my eyes.

My second biggest compliment was when I had two different publishing houses offer me contracts for one of my books. That memory sure helps when I get the rejection letters.

Sue: What’s next for you? Tell me about your next or newest release.

My next novel ‘Regardless’, a gay/sci fi, is scheduled for release in Sept. 2012. It’s a whole new genre for my usual works of historical romance. Because it crosses genres, it was a hard sell, so I’m so happy that Regal Crest Publishing has seen fit to add it to their prestigious library.

Sue: Any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to fellow authors?

Just sit down and write. Don’t worry about what others think. Don’t worry about editing. Don’t worry about publishing. Just get into your characters – picture them, feel them, smell them, taste them, hear them talk. Don’t worry about plot. Make your characters so real that your reader will dread the last page of your book when they can no longer travel along with the character you have created. The character who has become like a friend/relative/enemy to your reader.

****

Sharon's books:

In 1897, Abby Barron, a young Irish-American girl, loses her cousin to a
fire and with him the plans to escape Chicago to search for gold in the Yukon
fields. A want-ad for a cook revives the plan and she soon hires on with Paddy
and Tommy, a medicine-show man and his son.
    Despite Abby's wanderlust and Tommy's desire to settle down, the two
fall in love. But it's a long road to fulfill Abby's dreams of reaching the Yukon--one
that tests the bonds of love and uncovers long-held family secrets.

Excerpt-
   "Abby took a deep breath and entered the darkened interior. The lobby was
surprisingly clean and welcoming. She walked atop a faded Oriental rug
runner, passing several divans and overstuffed chairs on her way to the
hotel desk. A man wearing a green-shaded visor looked up from a newspaper
and smiled broadly.
    "Well, well, little lady." His leering smile heightened Abby's anxiety.
    She laid the newspaper on the desk and pointed to the ad. "May I see Mr.
Finley, please?"
    He waved toward a room off to his left. "I believe I saw him come back a
bit ago. Try the dining room. He may be having his lunch."
    Abby looked in the direction he pointed. "Can you tell me what he looks
like?"
    The clerk stepped from behind the desk and motioned for her to follow
him. He led her to a room just off the hotel lobby. The room was bathed in
the warmth of the January sun. At four of the eight or nine small tables,
covered with white tablecloths and surrounded by four chairs each, sat lone
male diners. The room was bright and stark in contrast to the dark of the
lobby. The white walls were devoid of decoration. Only two potted ferns
brought any color into the room.
    The clerk pointed to a man who was sitting with his back to her at a
table by the window. "That's him." He returned to his desk to talk with
another woman. Abby noticed that the newcomer was an unnatural blonde and
was wearing far too much make-up. Her silk, red dress was inappropriately
garish for this time of afternoon, or anytime actually. Abby watched the
clerk and the woman exchange suggestive smiles before the blonde headed
toward the stairs.
    "Seat yourself girlie." A chubby man wearing a greasy apron barked at
her as he headed toward Mr. Finley with a bowl of soup and a pile of
crackers.
    Abby gripped the newspaper tightly and attempted to follow the waiter,
but found her feet stuck to the floor. They refused to budge. Her terrified
mind admonished her to turn and go home. She took two steps back. The
newspaper fell from her hand."

Website - http://www.sharonpoppen.com/

Blog Site - http://poppensthoughtsonwritingandstuff.blogspot.com/

Email - poppen@citlink.net

Author Bio -

Sharon Poppen ( http://www.sharonpoppen.com/ ) has won awards from Arizona
Authors Assoc. and National League of American Pen Women. Her western novels
After the War, Before the Peace, Hannah and Abby-Finding More Than Gold are
available at Amazon Books, most web based book sellers and from her website.
Her work has appeared in such publications as A Flasher's Dozen, Desert
Treasures, Skive, Offerings from the Oasis, A Long Story Short, Apollo Lyre
and Laughter Loaf. Her workshops on Journaling, Short Story Writing and
Blogging bring rave reviews. Sharon is a member of Lake Havasu City Writer's
Group.

List of Published Novels -
    After the War, Before the Peace - Xlibris Publishing
    Hannah - Virtual Tales Publishing
    Abby-Finding More Than Gold - Awe-Struck Publishing

Author – Sharon Poppen

http://www.sharonpoppen.com/

Awe-Struck/Mundania Published Authors Blog-Tour - Christine London

2011-09-03T17:00:00.000+01:00

It's 4th September and we're kicking off the blog tour with Christine London .

The victims - sorry! - fellow authors have been asked two extremely simple (ahem) questions to answer on Lauracea.

Christine has something awful...um...very interesting in her living room. And you can always feel safe around her. Find out what and why. Without further ado, here's Christine's fabulous post:

Thanks for hosting me today, Sue.

My name is Christine London and I live my life steeped in my senses. Why? Because I love to read and write a book that puts me into a scene as though I were really there. Sounds, smells, feel and even taste count as much as sight, so I write with a visceral sensibility.

Sue: Tell us five things most people wouldn't be able to find out about you just by reading your blogs/social media presence?

1- I don't watch TV. Well, hardly ever. Most of it is just not alluring. I'd rather be in the world of my next book or reading other's work.

2- I like to garden. Yeah--Christine London of the travel and Hollywood events blog, London Blog, enjoys getting her hands dirty and nurturing results.

3- I never read a romance before writing one. Yikes...that's a scary thing to admit, but I was a non-fiction self-help kinda book gal. I think it has made my writing fresh, with no preconceptions attached as to how a romance ought to be constructed. Others tell me my work is refreshing, so guess it's been a real plus. :)

4- I am a Certified Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T) member. Yup--took the training when I lived in Northern California after Loma Prieta Earthquake to be sure I knew what to do and how to help in the event of a catastrophic event. I crawled through dark houses, put out fires, carried victims fireman-style, constructed wood cribbing under heavy objects, learned triage and central command cotrol, to name a few skills. Small wonder that you will find tent, food, water, and emergency supplies in the outermost corner of my garage.

5-There's a snake in my living room. His name is Henry and I saved him from being tread upon in Feb of 1994 while on a walk. At that time he was a baby sunning on the sidewalk. He's a gopher snake and local to California. He has met many a kindergartner (kids in my class- I taught kindergarten in public school for seven years.) to give them hands on experience with this much misunderstood and maligned animal. No, they are not slimy, they are not all poisonous (though you should treat them all as if they are until someone who knows how to identify them can do so.) and they are a very necessary part of the food chain.

Sue: Choose two characters from any of your books and tell us five things about them.

Well, my Awe Struck book, Leap Of Faith, is patterned after some very special people in my life.

Faith, the heroine-

1- is a compilation of my feisty daughter and reserved son.

2- is revealed to have a neurological condition in the course of the novel--the same from which my son suffers. As mom I have lived and breathed accommodating and supporting a loved one with this challenge and thus felt strongly that is should be addressed through the context of a very lovable, vibrant young person as a means of uplifting those who are so challenged and educating those of us who may well have misconceptions about people with it. This story is highly entertaining, but also important. We all have challenges in our lives. We can all live richly and well with them.

3- The model ("Faith") on the cover IS my daughter. She is now a second lieutenant in the US Marine Corp stationed in Quantico, Virginia.

4-The setting where Faith meets Hunter (and Alex) is an actual island off the coast of Naples. I have vacationed there and in fact did some of the same (somewhat hair brained) things Faith has the gumption to do in Leap Of Faith. (Hint- Faith crashes an international film festival. The real festival is the Ischia Film Festival held every July.)

5- Faith reconnects with Alex in a real locale in Los Angeles across the street from the Arc Light Cinema on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood--researched by me while attending a red carpet film opening for a film starring a man upon which Alex is based.

Whew--another character?

Erik Bartholomew of Soul In His Eyes

1- Inspired by a real Scot actor living and working today. As such--

2- The plot is partially biographical.

3- Erik, as with his Christine, gained (me) instant entrance into one of the swankiest restaurants in London-- The Ivy--with a lengthy wait list for reservations. While researching locales, I offered my author-ly credentials to the host and he allowed me entrance.

4- Erik is the given name of the beloved, if tortured character, the Phantom, in the long running musical. Erik Bartholmew is in the midst of filming a scene in the film Phantom in the opening of Soul In His Eyes. Christine is the heroine in both works.

5- Erik Bartholomew is isolated physically by an Icelandic filming location, metaphorically by his fame. The fictional set in the novel mirrors the rugged, isolated filming of Sturla Gunnarsson's Beowulf.

Hope this has been as fun and amusing for you as it has been for me. Thanks for the opportunity, Sue!

It has indeed, Christine, you're one fascinating author and your characters are awesome.

Christine's books:

e-ISBN: 978-1-58749-735-3

Awe Struck Publishing

Film student Faith Holmes is on an Italian holiday bought and paid for -- a familial inducement to finding an Italian husband. She wants none of it. Boredom and curiosity make for a volatile mix and Faith is lured into the heart of the island of Forio's exclusive international film festival not as guest, but crasher. Hollywood's premiere publicist Hunter Jameson has more than enough on his plate when his client, English film sensation Alex Winslow decides he's departing from the straight and narrow. One American party crasher should be the least of his worries. He has no idea that Alex's growing feelings for Faith rival his own. The only thing for certain is his life will never be the same.

e-ISBN: 978-1-59426-865-6

ISBN: 978-1-60659-949-5 (print)

Phaze Books
Christine Rose lives an ideal life in a beach suburb of Los Angeles with her husband, Leo. Whilst on summer break from her teaching responsibilities, Christine sees Hollywood's rendition of her favorite gothic romantic musical, featuring a mysteriously magnetic actor with haunting, haunted eyes. Will his response to her letter help her cope with the tragedy that rips her world apart? Fascinated by her acuity and racked with the lonely isolation of fame, Erik pursues the Californian woman through an affair of words. He is as determined to open Christine's heart as she is to save him from his self-imposed solitude. But before they can dream of what lies in the future, they must come to grips with their pasts, as well as the myriad of obstacles fate and fame place in their way. Set in Los Angeles, Iceland, London, and Scotland this globetrotting novel visits the disparate worlds of quiet family life and the lightening paced celebrity of moviemaking. It interweaves two life stories, unfolding half a world apart, in a novel of courage, strength and love. The author's extensive travel and residence in England and Scotland make this read fun and scintillatingly "Brit".

Christine London was born in Chicago, Illinois, but left the long winters of the Midwest as a child to find her roots in the sun and charm of California, both North and South. Her adopted home became Great Britain when she spent a year of college in the east end of London with three male flat mates; one from each country on the main island. Her fascination and love affair with all things British has grown over the years, facilitated by summers spent trading houses.

Graduating from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Chris continued with family, teaching, singing in a jazz sextet and running foot races (and winning) before discovering her true passion….the romance and adventure of writing.

It took one Scot to awaken her poetic appreciation of Scotland's natural beauty, and another Scot to ignite her passion for writing. Thank you, gentlemen.

*****

If you'd like to read more about Christine and her books - as well as read some excerpts - take a look at her website: www.christinelondon.com

The Show is Ready to Roll...

2011-08-29T15:21:00.000+01:00

I'm very proud to be an Awe-Struck Published author. Over this past year I've discovered that my fellow authors from Awe-Struck and Mundania are not slow in coming forward: they're always ready to share ideas, super reads and general writing information.

A group of my fellow authors and I have decided that we'd like to share these interests with you, and I think you'll be fascinated at what's about to be revealed!

Starting September 4, for 8 weeks, 8 of us will be "baring all" to reveal what's on our minds about all aspects of writing and reading. I think you'll find some little gems in the blog-tour. Take a look at the authors' schedule (and check out everyone's books on their sites):

Jennifer Cloud -http://www.myspace.com/cloudjennifer/blog

Ann Tracy Marr -http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=56438417580

Susan Roebuck (that's me) - http://lauracea.blogspot.com

Christine London - http://christinelondon.blogspot.com

Sharon Poppen -http://poppensthoughtsonwritingandstuff.blogspot.com

Skyla Dawn Cameron - www.skyladawncameron.com/blog

Regan Taylor - http://regantaylorsworld.blogspot.com

Jana Richards - http://janarichards.blogspot.com

Check in with me on September 4 when the show gets rolling.

Absence - oh loads of things

2011-08-24T18:39:00.005+01:00

There, isn't that pretty?
Not entirely sure what it is so perhaps one of you fonts of all knowledge will tell me. And be gentle - I don't even know what a smart phone is.

You may, or more probably may not, have noticed my absence. Fear not! All is well. I've just been so snowed-under -------------->>>>>>
(That's a picture of me when a flash of inspiration hits). See, I'm about to submit a new book, yikes, yikes, yikes.

But, back to the point, if any of you know what to do with that thing in the top left-hand corner and you do it (does that make sense?) - can you let me know what you see?

Lauracea will be up and running again in a very few days. With LOTS of exciting things. Yep, take a deep breath and don't let go...

A New Author Worth Watching

2011-08-15T13:42:00.001+01:00

Watch out all you famous authors at the forefront of m/m hot fiction - there's a new boy in town!

Tristram's first novel, "On My Knees", has been swiftly followed by a real corker: Lorenzo il Magnifico
Although Luke has an art-history degree, he's working in a call-centre in Leeds. Mundane indeed but he's expecting life to take a turn for the better as he leaves on a short holiday to Florence. Where he meets vibrant Lorenzo.
Although Luke was only seeking holiday excitement, the attraction between the two men is instant. But Luke's holiday is only a week long - will it just be another wham-bam-thanks-for-the-memories-and-here's-your-hat type of romance?
I hoped not because I was rooting for the two heroes. Characterisation in Lorenzo il Magnifico is impeccable: Luke comes over as an authentic young man from Leeds who is in desperate need of a stroke of luck. And Lorenzo? Well, suffice to say he lives up to the title of the book.
Florence is portrayed in perfect detail which made me believe that the author knows his way around there like a second (or possibly first?) home. If you're yearning for the feel, sights, sounds and smells of "off-the-tourist map Florence", then look no further: Lorenzo il Magnifico provides it in bucket-loads. A delightful read all round, in my opinion, and if you're a lover of well-written, steamy, m/m romances then I recommend Lorenzo il Magnifico (which really should carry the warning to turn your air-conditioning on as you're reading).

More of Steve Emmett - Actor/Author

2011-07-29T22:10:00.001+01:00

Following on from my post today (about Steve Emmett). Look what I've got...a video of Steve as a priest! And you heard about it first from ME :)
Yay for Britain's up-and-coming new acting talent:

Getting in on the Act - an Actor/Writer

2011-07-29T11:22:00.004+01:00

Steve Emmett is theauthor of the much acclaimed thriller “Diavolino” which I reviewed here http://lauracea.blogspot.com/2011/02/fabulous-read.html.It’s currently standing at number 7 on Amazon’s Kindle horror books by customerrating with no fewer than 29 gushing reviews.

He’s also a budding actor, having launchedhis career at the end of last year.

I managed to catch up with him in his busy schedule to find out if acting and writing are compatible.

Sue: Tell us something about your acting experience.

Steve: When I was at school I always loved the idea of being an actor but I didnothing about it. At that time, where I was, acting wasn’t something on thecareers list of the grammar school and my parents certainly never encouragedme. All my life people have said that I should be on TV or the stage, yet stillI ploughed on with a career that failed to satisfy me. Around the time I feltthe urge to change course, when I began writing, I was having dinner with myold friend the actress Nina Baden Semper. I’ve always been able to throw herinto fits of laughter with my stories and impersonations and that night was noexception. When I said that I would love to be an actor but it was too late shereprimanded me. ‘It’s never too late,” she said. “Get on and do it. You couldbe the new Brian Blessed.” I didn’t really think even then that I would, buther words struck home and I kept hearing them during that period I sold up mybusiness in Italy and returned to England. So, once I’d got my writing career underway Idecided to give acting a go. I went to see the casting director, Joe AdamsonParker, and basically asked her to test me out and tell me to shove off if shethought I had no talent. Well, she asked me to join her group in Leeds and that’s where my training began.

It’s far from easy to get started. There are thousands of experiencedand talented actors without work. It’s about as hard as it is for anunpublished author to get published. You have to be determined and patient. Thefirst job I landed was playing a detective superintendent in a docudrama abouta bank robbery. If you have cable you might catch me as the programme will beaired in the autumn. But to really have a chance you need to gain experienceand add credits to your CV, and one of the best ways is to work with universitystudents on their degree films. I was lucky to audition for about a half adozen and land three roles. I’ve played a demon tutor, a wife beatingchild-abusing husband and a priest with a secret. The latter, called Manus Dei,is a film noir and will be doing the rounds of festivals and competitions overthe coming year.

At present it’s all auditions, and I’m often in London trying to land a part in something or other.

Sue: Does acting influence your writing and viceversa?

Steve: Both are creative and certainly there is a cross-over. You know, Sue, asa writer that you have to know your characters. An actor has to go one stepfurther and become the character. That’s the bit I love. It’s escapism, just aswriting allows me to live in a fictional world most of the time. Acting makesyou acutely aware of how other people react to certain situations and this isvery useful to me as a writer. On the other hand, having learned how to craft astory has enabled me to grasp the plotlines rather quicker than I might and insome cases I have been able to make suggestions to the director which haveenhanced the films. For me, the two jobs are organically intertwined.

Sue: If writers are planning to turn their novelinto a screenplay, or intending to write directly for the big screen, whatadvice would you give them?

Steve: Well, I don’t write screenplays or scripts but I have read many, andI’ve watched thousands of films. The acclaimed play write, John Godber, spoketo our group recently and he said that the difference between a novel and aplay (we can include film) is that a novel contains too much descriptionwhereas the play just gets on with the action. In my opinion – and who am I tosay? – he’s partly right. My stories, as you will agree I think, get on with itfrom the beginning and don’t dwell on too much description. This sort of pageturner makes a good film. Keep the action going. Even then, when screen writerJames McSloy wanted to turn Diavolino into a film script I was more than happyto hand it over to him. It’s another world completely. So, trying to answeryour question, if a writer wants to write the screenplay they will have tolearn the ropes all over again. If they want to write a novel with a view to itbecoming a film, they should make sure there’s plenty of action, tension andinterest both visual and intellectual.

Sue: Be honest. Which do you prefer, writing oracting?

Steve: In all honesty, I don’t prefer one over the other. I love to see acompleted story, but there are truly painful times during the writing process.I love the thrill of becoming someone else in front of the camera, but learninglines is one of the worst things I’ve ever done.

Sue: Diavolino has been such a success which mustbe a marvelous experience for you. Is there going to be a sequel or are you workingon something different now?

Steve: I know that the sequel has to be even better; I don’t want to be one ofthose authors who disappoints after the first novel. For this reason I’ve madea start on the sequel but have left it to ferment a while. I’m currentlywriting another horror novel which, if I succeed, will be more complex anddarker than Diavolino. I’ve also written a macabre and twisted short storywhich might see the light of day very soon. At the same time I’m fiddling witha number of other novels and novellas, as well as collaborating with James onthe – almost finished – screenplay for Diavolino.

***** Exciting news indeed.

I can't stress it enough : I adored Diavolino.

Steve's website: http://chukkienator.blogspot.com/

FaceBook:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Emmett/190772694286916
Twitter:http://twitter.com/#!/chukkie58
Etopia Press purchase link:
http://www.etopia-press.net/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=20

Eat Portugal

2011-07-22T12:29:00.004+01:00

I was fortunate enough to attend a book-launch for “Eat Portugal – The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food” by Lucy Pepper and Célia Pedroso.

As a foreigner living in Portugal for many years one would imagine that I’d know all there is to know about our cuisine. But this book is a gem. It is divided into sections: Recipes, Glossary, Useful information and English/Portuguese, Portuguese/English dictionary.

The recipes are surprisingly simple but delicious and written in a style that makes the reader want to head for the kitchen: “Broad Bean Stew (Favas à portuguesa) Broad beans become interesting when cooked with mint and meat juices”.
The glossary is sometimes laugh out loud amusing, but straight to the point and honest: “feijão: bean. Beans are very common in Portuguese cookery…Tinned baked beans (in tomato sauce) are thought quite horrible in Portugal and the idea of eating them for breakfast or with chips is ludicicrous.”

In 2005, a well-known restaurant critic writing for the Sunday Times wrote this about Portugal:

“…Portugal is Belgium for golfers, a place so forgettable that the rest of us haven’t even bothered to think up a rude nickname for it. …there is a theory that the Portuguese only got an empire as a desperate attempt to get laid…In gallant little Portugal, the food is well meaning and pretty dreadful…I’m sure if you’re born to it, it reminds you of your grandmother’s beard and your mother’s mop bucket. Portuguese food is heaven — if you’re Portuguese…”

And so on and so forth. The article, rightly, provoked a storm of protests not only from the Portuguese but also from foreigners.

Lucy and Célia can explain why the writer got it completely wrong.

Questions:

Sue: What would you say to the restaurant critic who wrote the above?

Lucy: I remember that review. First, I’d just say “grow up, Adrian, and stop showing off”.

At the time he hadn’t been to Portugal, so I’ve never understood how he had such strong feelings about the place. If he HAD been here and said them, I’d have forgiven him; everyone has an opinion. Of course, you can find bad food in Portugal, but I must say that it is a lot harder to do here than, say, in Britain, which, although she has changed her foodmap forever and is now one of the greatest places to find amazing food, it’s also too easy to find utter rubbish, from the horrible generic frozen pub food to plasticky bakery food and some dreadful restaurants.

Poor Adrian wasn’t blessed with a Portuguese mother-in-law. I acquired one 13 years ago, and I’ve been her experimental guinea pig ever since... she, like many Portuguese, is of the opinion that the British are a bunch of sissies who need to learn to appreciate Cozido à Portuguesa (lit. Boil-up, à la Portugaise) ... and I learned.

I would also forgive Adrian for what he said if he had ever been presented with a great ugly plateful of Cozido à Portuguesa, with its fair share of ears and noses poking out, and boiled flour and blood sausages sitting mushily at the edges, or with an evil looking dish of Feijoada (Bean Stew, with meat and often with cured sausages) with so many ingredients in it that you imagine it can’t taste of any of them. I would forgive him because I took my time to appreciate them. However, once you can get past the looks, the flavours are interesting, deep and lodge themselves into your new found “this is what Portugal tastes like” area of your brain.

I am pleased that Adrian will be denied that pleasure.

Célia: I had forgotten about that review. Glad you point it out because many people feel some kind of fear or even repulsed just based on what their eyes see on the table. Once you get over that visual first impression you'll find a tasty cuisine. Sometimes simple, sometimes rich, but very different from our neighbour, Spain, which surprises most visitors. As one important British restaurant critic (Marina O'Loughlin) says, Portuguese cuisine is still very underrated. I suppose if Adrian had tried the Migas à Moda do Alentejo (a bread and pork dish from Alentejo) cooked by Lucy he would never have written that nonsense.

Sue: “Eat Portugal – The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food” is aimed at foreign residents, tourists and the Portuguese themselves. How did you manage to create a book that would satisfy all three?

Lucy: We initially aimed the book at tourists and foreign residents. The fact that it resonates with the Portuguese is a huge added bonus and a lovely surprise. When we started working on it, I wasn’t at all sure how it would go down with my Portuguese friends, this “bifa” writing about their food.

We wrote it in a casual, chatty way, so that it was easy to pick up and easy to read. Maybe that has also helped to appeal to everyone.

Célia: The non-Portuguese were our first target and the reason why we wrote the book in the first place. Somehow, now that the book is published, many Portuguese also love it and ask for a Portuguese translation, which was a happy surprise. Apparently traditional dishes are not as cooked as often as they used to be in many households, and people don' t feel confident in doing it anymore without a recipe; this could explain this warm reaction. Also, Lucy's design is very appealing and makes the book easy to read and use.

Sue: I’ve always been curious about cookery-book writing. How do you choose the recipes, and did you actually try them yourselves?

Lucy: The recipes are ones that one or other of us already makes from time to time or that a friend or relative makes and was happy to give us the recipe. We tried all the recipes (and photographed most) as we wrote the book, with a great deal of help from Célia’s mother.

Célia: We chose the recipes based on our knowledge and experience, thinking of what non-Portuguese would like to cook at home, after a visit to Portugal. A selection of recipes that could represent most of the country, including Madeira and Azores islands. Yes, we tried, taste and photograph them, with a hand from my mother, a great cook and expert in Portuguese cuisine. During the writing and cooking process I was very moved to see how Lucy's love for our food is as passionate as mine. I'm convinced she eventually will get over her baba de camelo (camel's spit) and lampreia de ovos (egg lamprey) disgust.

Sue: Which is your favorite recipe?

Lucy: This week, it’s Milho Frito (fried corn), a side dish from Madeira. It’s something I only discovered a couple of years ago and it is fiendishly good... and extremely simple to make. Simply cook up a thick batch of fine grain cornmeal/polenta (well salted, add garlic and a little shredded kale if you like), cooked until it’s well cooked and rubbery, let it cool, refrigerate for a few hours to enhance the rubberyness. Slice into 1” cubes or sticks and deep fry, until golden and crispy on the outside. I didn’t say it was good for you.

Célia: That is a difficult question as I love most of the recipes in the book, but I would say Migas à Moda do Alentejo and Bacalhau à Braz (cod with eggs and chips). The desserts are also a matter of perdition. I recommend them all.

Sue: Where can people buy “Eat Portugal”?

Lucy: We’re currently looking into getting it to Amazon.

It’s available in Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports and many bookshops across Portugal.

Also it’s available online:

Mediabooks: http://www.mediabooks.com/catalogo/detalhes_produto.php?id=51784

where it is also available as an e-book: http://www.mediabooks.com/catalogo/detalhes_produto.php?id=52553

Fnac: http://www.fnac.pt/Lucy-Pepper-Eat-Portugal/a360808?Mn=-1&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=24&Fr=0

Bertrand: http://www.bertrand.pt/ficha/eat-portugal?id=10952335

Sue: Do you have any plans for a follow-up book?

Lucy: We’re thinking of extending it a little, but we’re going to see how it goes for now.

** Here's a video of Lucy talking about the book. She's in a very famous café in Belém (near Lisbon) which makes the BEST (and only - because they're original) pastéis de Belém (custard tarts). Yum.

** There's also a video here
which shows the book launch. Take a look - and you might spot ME :)