Posts Tagged ‘author’

In Praise of Nerd Heroes

Hi, I’m Zoë, and I’m a nerd lover.

Hi, Zoë.

As a romance reader, and romance author, I know I’m supposed to love the big, brooding, badass alpha hero.  He’s the guy who can do everything—lead an assault on a nest of vampires, single-handedly take down the drug cartel, defeat the spy ring while flawlessly dancing a waltz and making all the maidens weak with desire.  These heroes are larger than life, and yes, they definitely make a woman’s pulse speed up.

But give me a shy, smart guy, and watch me swoon.

There’s something so utterly charming, something that makes me all weak in the knees when a man who’s known for his brains suddenly loses his composure around the woman he fancies.  He doesn’t have the smooth moves, he doesn’t know the right words to say.  He may even stammer and blush.  He’s more comfortable thinking up complex equations than seducing, and that makes his awkward attempts at wooing all the more irresistible.

Of course, I’m also talking about a romance hero, so my favorite nerd heroes can also kick butt.  It wouldn’t quite work if the heroine had to keep bailing him out, would it?  So underneath his button-down shirt or uniform, you’re going to find a body that’s just as sexy and capable as his brains.  Oh, and you know that famous line from the film “Revenge of the Nerds?”  “All Jocks ever think about is sports, all [nerds] ever think about is sex.” Yeah, that’s definitely true.  Smart guy + sex = very attentive, creative lovemaking.

Lieutenant Nils Calder, the hero of CHAIN REACTION, is the top mind in the 8th Wing’s Engineering Corps.  (The other 8th Wing soldiers refer to Engineering as NerdWorks.)  He’s also the very last person Lieutenant Celene Jur wants accompanying her on her mission of vengeance.  But behind Nils’s quiet, nerdy exterior beats the heart of a true warrior.  All he has to do is survive the mission—and survive Celene.

Tell me some of your favorite nerd heroes!  I’ll pick a winner from one of the comments to receive a copy of CHAIN REACTION.

Photobucket

You can read an excerpt of CHAIN REACTION here.

Order: Carina, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook

***

Zoë is a RITA-award nominated romance author who loves kickass heroines and heroes who love kickass heroines.  Her books include the paranormal historical Hellraisers series and the acclaimed Blades of the Rose historical paranormal adventure series. she enjoys baking, tweeting about boots, and listening to music from the ’80s.  She and her husband, fellow romance author Nico Rosso, live in Los Angeles.

Website, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr


The Strong Romance Heroine

Lesserblood Lies cover

I love reading a romance where the heroine isn’t afraid to use action, even violence, to solve problems. Smart and skillful, she lives on her own terms. Her flaws and vulnerabilities are overshadowed by her physical strength or psychic supremacy. She’s likely gorgeous, too. This tough woman will meet her love match with an equally powerful man.

I see myself in the strong female character. I get to pretend I’m just that fierce and clever–and dazzling. Plus I get to imagine hooking up with an alpha hottie.

The kick-ass heroine is especially prominent in urban fantasy and paranormal romance. She hunts down demons, or perhaps she is a demon. The fierce heroine is common in science fiction romance, too. The mercenary soldier, the spaceship captain, the intergalactic spy. Even if she doesn’t literally kick ass, she can zap the bad guy with a lethal omega particle beam, or blast the enemy’s ships into oblivion, or poison the evil adversary’s soup with nanobots. She uses technology to get what she wants.

Now that I’ve celebrated the kick-ass heroine, I must confess: The heroine in my new science fiction romance Lesserblood Lies is rather ordinary. Merianne can’t throw a punch, she doesn’t have an amazing futuristic arsenal, and she’s not beautiful. She’s just a mother trying to protect her unusual daughters. Merianne’s strength lies in her ferocious devotion to her children. Her love match isn’t even a genetically enhanced super soldier or a galactic tycoon. He’s a loner scientist. (He is way hot, though.)

CONTEST!

Science
So what do you think? What makes a romance heroine strong? Can a heroine with determination and courage be as potent as her warrior-like counterpart? Do you have a favorite kick-ass leading lady? I would love to hear from you!

I’ll randomly select one commenter, and send the winner this fun ThinkGeek science T-shirt (Size Large).The winner will be announced on the comments thread on Friday December 16. I have a winner! Please see comment thread!

*****

Novel Buy Links:

Kindle | Nook | Carina Press

Lesserblood Lies will also soon be released as an audio book!

Ainsley’s website

Ainsley’s twitter

There’s just so much a girl can take!

I’ve always had something of a love/hate/fascination thing going on with fortune telling.  I’ve a couple of friends who are die-hard about this – their lives just don’t work without their monthly forecast.

I’ve heard all the predictions, everything from, “You vil meet ze tall, dark, handsome…” to “Honey, you know that road trip you were planning next week? Well, don’t.” Uh, my friend did, and she really shouldn’t have, thank God it was only a minor accident.

But, whether it’s just a matter of playing the odds or even if the power of suggestion is subconsciously enabling these predictions to come true or not, there’s certainly something fascinating about the prospect of (maybe) knowing what’s coming around the corner.

Not so much for my heroine in Second-Guessing Fate

Photobucket Gemma’s just your everyday girl carrying a dream in one pocket and a healthy dollop of wariness in the other. Her best friend’s a little obsessive about living life according to the predictions of Madame Hooch, but hey, no one’s perfect!

She’s had her share of heartbreak (and then some) but who hasn’t?  Right?

And if things have been a little slow on the dating front these last couple of years, well, what’s a girl to do? Put her energy and passion into growing her catering business, that’s what.

But then Gemma’s friend drags her off to Madame Hooch for a little fortune telling therapy. She doesn’t really believe in all that mumbo jumbo, but seriously! She hasn’t even met the guy yet and he’s going to dump her? That’s enough to make any girl mad enough to get even. In this case, it means tricking the gorgeous Nick into dumping her sooner rather than later. There’s a soul mate on the line if Madame Hooch is to be trusted. Unfortunately she’s up against Fate and things don’t go quite according to plan.

I had so much fun writing this book! Gemma has to get herself dumped before Fate plays its trump card and leaves her heartbroken. She’s not sure how she got into this situation, she doesn’t even believe the future can be  predicted, but suddenly she’s playing a game and the prize is a soul mate she never gave much thought to before.

I’ve only been to a fortune teller twice, dragged both times by obsessed friends. I don’t seriously give it much credence, but I’ve had fun along the path of my life, smiling wickedly when some of the things come true and quirking a brow when the exact opposite unfolded.

My fortune-teller saw travel in my future, and I’ve moved continents three times. So far. She also predicted a couple of mind-boggling awesomeness stuff that, um, I’m still waiting on, lol.

What about you? I’d love to hear your fortune telling stories, or stories that happened to a friend of friend!

If you’re up for a fun read this summer as Gemma tries to outwit fate and get herself dumped, you can read more about Second-Guessing Fate here on Carina Press or pop along to my Website for a longer excerpt.

Claire Robyns lives in Berkshire, England, with her husband and twin boys. For so long as she has memories, she was either reading, dreaming about reading, or planning what she’d be reading next. Then one day she started dreaming about writing and that was the beginning of an amazing journey.
When Claire isn’t thigh-deep in laundry, shopping, cooking and general crowd control, you’ll find her head-and-heart-deep in the tangled lives of her characters.


Visit Claire at her website
www.clairerobyns.com or on twitter @clairerobyns

Have You Ignored an Important Call?

Take that call next time.

Telemarketers always bug me during my writing time – afternoonish when my kids are sleeping. One or two a da. You’d think I was rich.

November 4th I sat down to write a particularly difficult scene and my phone rang. I glared at the offending buzz and shook my head.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. I groaned and answered. “Hello?”

“Is Bonnie Paulson available?” Super sweet voice which makes it even harder to say “no, not interested”.

“This is.” Mama taught me manners and I use ‘em.

“Hi, Bonnie. This is Angela James from Carina Press. I’m calling about the manuscript you submitted.” At this point, my eyebrows scrunched together. Had I done something wrong?  I’d never heard of an editor calling an author. Maybe I’d offended someone. Still wasn’t 100% certain she wasn’t a telemarketer.

But Ms. James continued on and I realized she was offering me a contract. I’d said “Uh hunh” to her comments and she paused, asking if I had any questions so far.

My response? Yeah, she tweeted about it. I said, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

And you know what? I didn’t, but that sense of surreality hasn’t left.

Mallory Braus proved to be as sweet and romantic-at-heart as Breathe Again needed.

Angela James has been more than accessible and supportive at every turn – even when I sent her interview questions for my own blog that were less than professional.

My cover artist took my breath away.

The copy editor made me smile and taught me a thing or three.

But Mallory worked my story over and in my developmental edits she made a suggestion that, as I worked it out, brought me to tears. I finished the scene sobbing, closed my laptop and looked around. The only think I wanted to do involved an empty wineglass (I don’t drink), a fireplace (green of course) and me looking for tissues around the apartment/house.

Mallory and the Carina Press team made me feel like Joan Wilder discovering my stories all over again.

Here’s a favorite part of mine from Breathe Again.

How could one man be sweet and genuine while the other lacked all sense of manners? Maybe the brute was raised on a farm where he never had the opportunity to see normal people and acted like a bull because he was raised among the cows. Maybe my sheep reference hadn’t been far off… Shampoo bubbles filled my hair and a chuckle escaped at the thought of Brodan in denim overalls slinging muck.

Ryan, on the other hand, seemed smooth and courteous, fun even. He’d made me laugh and that hadn’t happened in a long time.

But if I could put Ryan’s personality into Brodan’s body, it might have been just what I would be looking for, or not looking for, since the idea was strictly shower thinking. I’d gotten in trouble before, pursuing thoughts generated in the shower.

I lathered my body, trying to push the images of the men from my head. Aided by my hunger, I switched easily to considering menu items, with thoughts of pancakes smothered in syrup and crisp sizzling bacon ruling my mind.

By the time I finished washing, my stomach growled in earnest. I wouldn’t make it another two hours. Rather I left for the 24-hour one-stop shop ten minutes farther.

Beside my adorable VW van, blue with a white top from the early 70s, I drew in a deep breath. I loved when the rest of the world slept and it felt like I was the only one awake. Opening my door, I tossed my purse onto the seat beside the driver’s side. Before I climbed in, the blue paint glinted, reminding me of Brodan….

Dang. I’d have to retrain my attraction guide. The man’s similarities to Dean should have been the only repellent I needed. Add his rudeness and the fact we couldn’t be in the same room together, I should feel nauseated just thinking of him. Get him out of your head, Maggie.

I wrote Breathe Again while I was pregnant and you’ll notice I involve food a lot in my story. I’d write about the lasagna (recipe to follow) Maggie makes for Brodan and of course, finished the scene and had to make some. I ate most of it – much to my Hubs distress.

I drew my husband in with this recipe I developed – my own personal creation. You can find it at the bottom of this post. Maybe make it for you and your *wink* friend or eat it while you read Breathe Again.

Breathe Again Cover
Don’t you love this cover? Maggie leans against Brodan. The skyline reminds me of a Montana sunset. Carina Press artists captured the mood perfectly. I literally gasped when I saw it – and teared up.

I hope you enjoy Breath Again. Another book I would direct you do – well, two actually – Craving Perfect by Liz Fichera and Endless Night by Maureen A. Miller OH and Man Law by Adrienne Giordanno, so three.

They capture the essence of what Carina has to offer – exceptional authors with a phenomenal team backing them. Harlequin is so awesome I used superlatives that aren’t slang.

Knock-Your-Socks-Off Lasagna OR Dip-It Lasagna

  • Sauce Ingredients: One large can of tomato sauce, 1 large can diced tomatoes, 1 TB of minced garlic (with oil), chopped onions, italian sausage, 2 TB dry/fresh parsley, 2 TB sugar, 1 – 2 TB salt with pepper:
  • Everything but the sauce and diced tomatoes brown in a pan keeping the sausage oil. Add the tomato sauce and tomatoes. Simmer until the rest of the ingredients are ready.
  • Cheese ingredients: One small ricotta cheese, one medium cottage cheese, 2 cups mozzarella grated, garlic salt (about 1 TB).
  • Mix all and set aside to be layered.
  • Layering ingredients: Fresh spinach, fresh sliced mushrooms, sliced olives, anything else you like in your lasagna – like noodles – but don’t prepare too many, this is a less-pasta-more-fun-stuff dish.
  • Start your layers. Best to start with something like mushrooms then top with pasta, sauce then cheese. Next, olives, spinach, pasta, sauce then cheese. You should have a fairly thick dish with few layers. Cheese tops it and you’ll cook it in your pan (whatever kind you love) at 350 F for 30 to 40 minutes. This is SLOPPY and great to dip your garlic bread in. I love garlic.
  • Also, play with this recipe. You can’t ruin it because it’s a subjective dish. Like it sweeter? Add more sugar. More noodles? Add more. The sauce and the bread is the only reason I make it.

Bonnie R. Paulson

Enjoy and please! Please! Please! email me and let me know how you liked it! bonnierpaulson@gmail.com

Come find me on Twitter – @bonnierpaulson

And my blog: www.bonnierpaulson.com

I’m offering a $10 gift card to a randomly selected commenter on today’s post. To another a copy of BREATHE AGAIN – Woot!

I’d like to know who has supported you throughout your life? It’s all about people and the roles they play to our hearts. Maggie and Brodan help the other heal… Who do you have? This is your “I’d like to thank the Academy” moment. What would you say?

Oh, sorry? Did you say you wanted to know how you can purchase Breathe Again?

Carina Press (of course!), Amazon, Nook,Lybrary.com.

Where is your Atlantis?

David BridgerWhen you’re living through a tough time, do you go somewhere lovely in your mind?

I do. I experienced two periods of unhappiness in the navy. One was on my first ship, when the captain allowed his first lieutenant free rein to make everyone’s life hell, and I was too young and inexperienced to do anything but endure my two years on there. The other was later in my career, when I worked for three years in a small team doing dangerous work in bad conditions, only saw my wife and our little ones for a few weeks each year, and had no communications with them while I was away.

Five bad years out of twenty isn’t a bad ratio, but they were grim at the time. That’s when I developed the ability to be elsewhere in my mind when I didn’t have to focus hard on the immediate present. I lived in the happy past and the hopeful future, sometimes both at once, and always with my loved ones. It was their presence that made the place lovely.

In my urban fantasy Quarter Square, lovers Joe and Min do the comforting memories thing while living through a dark and dangerous time. Min is immortal. Joe is her reincarnated lover. War in the magical realm is spilling over into our world; everyone the lovers hold dear is in danger; and a crazed immortal werewolf is hunting them to murder Joe again. They’re on the run, and to jog Joe’s memory and help him recover the strengths he had in the past, Min tells him stories of his lives. The oldest story is of their time together in Atlantis, thousands of years ago.

Atlantis is the happy place Min and Joe go to when their world turns hellish.

Do you have an Atlantis? What’s yours like?

Tell us about it and enter the draw for a free copy of Quarter Square. Leave me a comment and I’ll draw a name at 8am GMT tomorrow and post the winner’s name in the comments!

Quarter Square


English carpenter Joe Walker thinks his life is over when he discovers his wife and best friend having an affair. Restoring an abandoned theatre offers little hope for a fresh start…until he follows a group of strangers through a hidden door into a world he never could have imagined.

In the haven known as Quarter Square, Joe encounters a community of supernatural street performers who straddle the mortal world and the magic realm known as the Wild. Here, Joe finds a sense of belonging he’s never known before—and a chance to uncover the truth behind the frightening visions that have haunted him since childhood. He also meets Min, an enchanting singer who quickly captures his heart.

But as Joe settles into Quarter Square, he learns their haven is under attack, while an ancient enemy threatens to tear him and Min apart. Now, Joe must learn to wield his own powers in order to save the life he’s come to love…



David Bridger settled with his family and their two monstrous hounds in England’s West Country after twenty years of ocean-based fun, during which he worked as a lifeguard, a sailor, an intelligence gatherer and an investigator. He writes urban fantasy and paranormal novels, and you can find him on his blog, Twitter and Facebook.

The Problem with Princesses

Princesses are everywhere. You can’t avoid them, can’t escape them. Cinderella, Snow White, Waity Katie. There are princess parties, princess pedicures, princess diaries and princess diets. Little girls dress up in tiaras and tulle; big girls buy out the entire run of a certain royal blue Issa dress hours after the engagement photos hit the net.

According to the media, no matter what heights of personal independence and professional success modern women achieve, we still want the fairy tale. I can’t argue with that—I do want the fairy tale. Just, not the Disney Princess™ version.

Growing up, my favorite fairy and folk tales were “Puss in Boots,” “Brer Rabbit,” “Jack the Giant Killer,” and “Hansel and Gretel.” These stories do not star pretty, passive princesses who sit and wait to be helped, to be saved, to be married. No, my favorite fairy tales feature adventure, danger and derring-do! They are stories where the little guy triumphs over big odds through cleverness, cunning, and courage. Unfortunately, in these tales the “little guy” is almost always just that—a guy. Princesses aren’t the protagonists, they’re the prize. And therein lies the problem.

Most popular female-centered fairy tales are about princesses, but princesses are only special because of who their parents are or who they’re married to. Just as their importance is by proxy, so, too are their adventures. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White don’t really do anything, except suffer virtuously while waiting to be found and rescued.

So what do you do when you love fairy tales, love adventure, and long for a strong heroine who can be clever and courageous and flawed, and still get her Happily Ever After? You write it yourself.

Catriona, the heroine of my novella, Cat’s Tale: A Fairy Tale Retold, is about as far from the typical fairy tale princess as you can get. There’s nothing long-suffering or virtuous about her. She may be beautiful, but at the start of the tale she’s also vain and indolent, a wicked woman with the morals of an alley cat.

After an evil wizard transforms our heroine into the feline she so resembled, Cat has to try to counter the curse without the aid of her looks, her money, or her killer wardrobe. What’s a pampered princess to do? Find a man to fix it, of course.

When she meets Julian, a handsome and kind-hearted miller’s son, Cat thinks she’s found the perfect patsy to buy her a pair of boots and aid her plans. But Julian turns out to be attractive, intelligent, and a bit too honest for his own good. Cat comes to respect him, to like him, to love him.

And all the while, Julian thinks she’s just a talking cat.

If Cat can keep her secret and regain her human form, she’s certain her beauty will win Julian’s heart—even though it means she’ll be gaining a lover at the cost of her only friend. But that’s a sacrifice she’ll have to make. After all, everyone knows men want women who are modest, chaste and virtuous—and Cat is anything but. A good man like Julian could never love a woman with such a wicked past. Could he?

If you’re like me, and you love fairy tales but have a problem with princesses, give Cat’s Tale a read. I guarantee Cat isn’t like any fairy tale heroine you’ve read before. If you’re hesitant to buy an unknown author, try me out first with Ember, my retelling of Cinderella. It’s available for free at my website. I’m also giving away an epub copy of Cat’s Tale to a randomly selected commenter. Tell me how you feel about princesses—love, hate, tolerate? All opinions are valid and welcome.

Bettie Sharpe is a Los Angeles native with a fondness for hot weather, classic cars and air so thick it sticks in your teeth. When she’s not busy attempting to metabolize smog into oxygen, she enjoys romance novels, action movies, comic books, video games and every other entertainment product her teachers said would rot her brain. She loves to write almost as much as she loves to read. As a child, she dreamed of seeing her name in shiny gold cursive on the cover of a luridly titled paperback book.

Bettie’s next release is a short story retelling “The Little Mermaid” called  ”Each Step Sublime.” Find out more at her website.

A Case of Fiction Imitating Life

As I write this post, I’ve been without the internet for four days. A storm blew in and knocked out our tower, an all-important tower that links to a satellite, my only means of internet communication.

Maria is not a happy camper—but she’s gone through worse. (Yes, that’s me climbing the back side of a root ball from a tree that had been wrenched out of the ground.)

When you have to brush your teeth with bottled water and rely on a hand-cranked radio just to hear another human voice, you begin to get some sense of what it is to lose everything in a matter of minutes. The recent tragedies here in the states, Japan and Australia reminded me how lucky I’ve been.

In 2005, Hurricane Rita devastated the entire Gulf Coast of Texas.

Rita tore out entire trees by the roots, taking the underground water lines with them. The fence surrounding our five acres hung on twisted posts, or were buried under trees and debris. Over a hundred pines were snapped in half like toothpicks. The power line to our house lay tangled in tree limbs, and our town was almost entirely deserted by the time we returned from our exodus.


A friend of ours, who had arrived on the scene first, called to tell us we had lost the house. He couldn’t even get into the driveway. Fortunately, he was wrong. The trees were so big they completely buried the house, hiding it from view. But that old ranch house has good bones. All we lost was the roof and some of the foundation.

We got to work as soon as we arrived, clearing brush and moving trees off the house and shop from dawn until dark. When it was too dark to work outside, I cleaned house by lantern light. The worst job of all was emptying and disinfecting the refrigerator and freezers of spoiled food. Not a job for the weak of stomach. I probably used an entire gallon of bleach in the kitchen alone.

It was hellishly hot in east Texas and after the storm passed, we endured a plague of mosquitoes crazed for blood. The standing water had given birth to millions of them. We didn’t even bother swatting them as we tried to coax a 20-year-old generator to come back to life. West Nile virus be damned.

In their rush to leave, many people left behind their pets. (Shame on them!) We were feeding dogs and cats in a steady kibble kitchen procession.

Within the week, utility workers from as far away as Connecticut arrived. They were such a welcome sight. Big smooches to utility workers everywhere. I love you guys.

And God bless the Red Cross. We had to go through so much red tape dealing with various agencies, but the Red Cross waived the damage inspection when my husband explained how primitively we were living. Sharing an old mattress with three dogs and a horde of mosquitoes in the only part of the house that didn’t have a tree over it is primitive by my book. (Because the foundation had shifted, we could no longer shut the doors properly, hence the extra mosquitoes.)

It took a long time to get back to normal. Even today, the landscape looks ragged. But I’m proud (and a little surprised) that we managed without power and water for 21 days. Since then, I don’t take anything for granted because I know how quickly it can be taken from you.

The only benefit of such a tragedy is that you inherit a treasure trove of ideas for future books—especially if you happen to write post-apocalyptic fiction.

In Apocalypse Rising our heroes go back in time—our time. Culture clash is the least of their troubles. Demons, genetic manipulation, and a rash decision could cost Leda more than she can bear. I hope to keep you guessing until the end.

Apocalypse Rising is the sequel to Touch Of Fire, a post-apocalyptic romance set 1200 years in the future. Although you can probably read Apocalypse Rising alone, you’ll have a better understanding of Leda and Grey’s world if you read how it all started in Touch Of Fire first.

And if you’d like to read more about the aftermath of Hurricane Rita and how we managed, starting Wednesday, 5-11-11, I’ll be posting a 3-part account on my blog.

***

This afternoon, Diane Dooley will take the Carina Press blog chair and share a little bit about her debut release: Blue Galaxy. Be a pal and buy her book, then pop in and say howdy.

***

Bio: Maria Zannini used to save the world from bad advertising, but now she spends her time wrangling chickens, and fighting for a piece of the bed against dogs of epic proportions. Occasionally, she writes novels.

Apocalypse Rising blurb: The only place to hide was in the past. Leda and Grey have one chance to escape a madman and that’s through a portal to a time before the apocalypse. But nothing has prepared them for 21st century culture, and every misstep draws them closer to the End Times. The world is teetering on extinction, and they may very well be the cause of it.

Of Eggs and Emails

Inception

One evening, I was deep in thought as I did mindless tasks in the kitchen. You know how it is, when you sink into your own head and kind of lose connection to what’s going on around you? I was jerked out of this by a hissing squeal. My immediate thought was gas leak, but we don’t have gas! After a few seconds, I realized it was the eggs on the stove. I was hard-boiling them, and as the water heated, air escaped the shells or something, making the noise.

My brain doesn’t like mundanities, so it immediately started exploring the effect of hissing eggs on a paranoid mind. And Regan Miller was born—a woman so caught up in keeping her daughter safe that mundanity doesn’t exist.

The Call

I didn’t actually get a call, and the reason is a good cautionary tale for other writers. :) I knew I was getting close to the typical response time for Carina, and Angela was teasing on Twitter about making calls, after sending, like, 329 rejections. I didn’t get a rejection, and Carina Press was following me on Twitter. So I actually bated my breath and waited for the phone to ring.

It didn’t.

Angela tweeted that someone hadn’t included their phone number, so my friends inundated me with IMs asking if it could be me. “No way!” I insisted. “Of COURSE I included my phone number!” So I figured my rejection had just been lost. Or maybe I was going to get a revise and resubmit request. A few days went by, and I stopped bating my breath. And then…

I got an e-mail with the offer for Fight or Flight! I’d thought I was being clever and efficient putting my contact information in the header of my document. But apparently, viewing an attachment in Outlook doesn’t allow you to see this information. So I sabotaged myself, which was fine, because I hate the telephone and was actually dreading getting a phone call! LOL Luckily, the sabotage didn’t extend to them just writing me off as an idiot. :)

The Book

Fight or Flight is a slightly unusual romantic adventure, in that its two points of view are the heroine’s (Regan Miller) and her daughter’s (Kelsey Miller). You get to see Kelsey fall in love, but struggle with what that means when her mother’s fears turn out to be completely founded, and she drags her new love into danger. On Regan’s side, she battles instincts honed over 18 years of not trusting anyone with the need to accept help from someone who might be working for her enemy.

You can read an excerpt here or here, and buy Fight or Flight here.

You’re not too late to join in The Month of the Hero, the blog celebration I’ve done with MJ Fredrick, the author of the fantastic friends-to-lovers/road-trip romance, Road Signs (another Carina Press March release, available now). All month long, we’ve discussed heroic traits in some of our favorite fictional heroes, such as Dean from Supernatural or Raylan from Justified. Now we’re having a showdown to see what hero tops them all.

I’ll be hanging out here all day (and beyond!), so please comment with your own paranoia stories, or the heroic traits you love best (and the heroes who embody them), or stupid things you might have done to sabotage yourself. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Natalie J. Damschroder writes romantic adventure because she loves high stakes and heroines who don’t ever need to be rescued (except from themselves). Check out her website or blog, follow her on Twitter, or friend her on Facebook or Goodreads. She can also be found posting every Monday at The GabWagon.

Nobody’s Hero

Genes shape who we are when we’re created. The argument of NATURE vs. NURTURE rears its head every time a baby is born. He has his mother’s eyes, his father’s nose, his grandfather’s hands. As a child grows, Nature comes into play even more. He’s allergic to peanuts just like his uncle, is left-handed like great-grandma, etc. If Daddy is an artist, we watch for those seeds of creativity to bloom in that child. Music lives in his blood and we’re not surprised when the child of a musician takes up an instrument at an early age.

Then Nurture comes into play… and beats the living hell out of the kid.

John Murphy was never meant to be a hero. He has a poet’s soul, sees imaginary friends and has whole worlds in his head. But the abuse he suffered growing up forced him to become what nature never intended. Hands that were designed to create clenched into angry fists. An open heart that believed in magic was broken until it hardened and shut people out. Eyes that saw wonder in every cloud and possibility in every sunbeam pinched tight in hatred.

To defend himself and his sister, he honed his body into a weapon, a shield. Life kicked him in the teeth over and over again. Every time, he’d emerge standing. Bloody maybe, but on his feet. He became used to pain. He became a loner. He became a survivor. He wasn’t anyone’s hero.

But those voices, those whispers of things not seen and stories not told, never left him. They were his only comfort. He’d close his eyes and let his pain-riddled body rest while his mind soared to lands of beauty and color, of goodness and warmth. In his world, monsters were kind, loving and loyal. His dreams became his refuge and he shared those with no one but his sister. Then she grew up, got married and John was alone, just him and his monsters… and the demons of his childhood.

One woman, a bright-eyed angel, saw past the darkness. Livvy saw beyond the hard shell to the tender poet underneath, to the child who dreamed, to the man who wanted to believe in those dreams. Livvy could take care of herself. She didn’t need a hero. She needed John.

SWEET AS SIN isn’t always nice. It isn’t always pretty. It is a gritty, intense look at the most wounded heart being healed with a sweet love.

~~~~~~~~~~SWEET AS SIN excerpt~~~~~~~~~

He tried to pull away, but Livvy hugged him tighter, squeezing her faith into him. “Alan what, Murphy? What did Alan do?”

“He beat the shit out of me daily until I was almost sixteen, among other things.”

Tears dripped down Livvy’s cheeks. She’d known. Somewhere inside, she’d known. There was no other explanation.

“He never touched Gina. That made it okay. As long as she was safe, I could handle anything he wanted to dish out.”

When he hadn’t spoken for a long time, Livvy raised her head. John stared deep into nothing. Something tremored in his body and he tightened his hold on her waist. Ache filled her and she clutched his arms. “What happened?”

He shook his head and blew out an oath. “That’s enough, Livvy. Let it go.”

“I can’t. I hurt for you.”

“Don’t.” The word sounded like a bark. The strength in his grip when he tried to push her away stunned her but she didn’t let go. For one brief second, he looked in her eyes, then shifted away. “You don’t understand. I—it’s ugly, Liv.”

“Whatever it was, you survived it.”

“Did I?” John closed his eyes and pulled her close.

~~~~~~~~~~

She was made for sin. Sin was something he knew intimately.

John Murphy is tormented by nightmares. A bestselling young-adult author, he writes the ultimate fantasy: stories where good always triumphs. He knows better. His past has shown him the worst in people—and in himself. When he moves next door to the sexy, vibrant Livvy—a woman completely unlike his usual one-night stands—he’s driven to explore every curve of her delicious body.

Pastry chef Livvy knows that giving in to the temptation that is John Murphy won’t lead to anything permanent, but she deserves a passionate summer fling. John discovers she’s as sweet as the confections she bakes while Livvy slowly unravels his secrets. But what will happen when she uncovers them all?

Inez Kelley is a multi-published author of various romance genres. You can visit her at her website http://inezkelley.com/ Follow Inez on twitter at @Inez_Kelley or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/inez.kelley

Buy SWEET AS SIN now from Carina Press.

The Challenges of Writing Romance in First Person

PhotobucketIsland of Icarus, my steampunk romance, is told completely from the perspective of Jonathan Orms, a professor of biology from 19th century London. Although I wouldn’t have written Icarus in any other way, when I look back now I realize, “You know, writing romance in the first person…can be pretty challenging.” A lot of tension in love stories is built around experiencing both characters’ feelings—giggling as the characters dance around each other.

Her: He must find me hideous, because he is so much more beautiful than I am! Let me avoid eye contact.

Him: Oh, she wants nothing to do with me. She doesn’t even look at me.

Her: God, his hand is so warm on mine. Can he feel my pulse quicken?

Him: I can feel her body stiffen. Why does she hate my touch?

Interactions like these have me clutching the book and mentally screaming, “Come on, guys! Get with the program! You two are DROOLING over each other!” Unfortunately, this kind of interplay is lost in first person narratives. There was at least one scene in Icarus that I had to alter because the narrator would not have noticed a significant look that his new friend gave him…but I wanted the reader to!

Writing a first person romance in a Victorian voice was an even greater challenge. While I don’t mind 19th century writing, it’s easy for it to turn into a train wreck. I think my editor would roll up my manuscript and whack me on the head with it if I tried to write a paragraph-long sentence with six semicolons. Trying to maintain my narrator’s prim Victorian voice but not lose the integrity of my own writing style was a balancing act. It was also a lot of fun.

Despite the challenges, I was completely set on writing Island of Icarus in the first person. Maybe it’s because I’m crazy, or maybe it’s because I prefer the first person. Heck, maybe I prefer the first person because I’m crazy. Really, I love seeing the world through someone else’s eyes and speaking with his voice. I think it makes the narrative more convincing; I’m not an author telling a made-up story, I’m the character sharing my experiences!

There is also a story-specific reason I chose first person for Island of Icarus. Icarus was inspired in part by The Island of Dr. Moreau, a Victorian novel written in the first person. I wanted to preserve the same personal element of adventure and discovery in Icarus.

Of course, there are tricks to write romance in first person—like alternating the narrative. I think Maggie Stiefvater (author of Shiver) and the other two Merry Sisters of Fate do this best, as in this story. I tried this in my short romance, Fear of Darkness, to a lesser extent (but most of it is still told from one character’s point of view).

By telling Icarus solely from Jon’s point of view, I do regret one thing—not being able to explore my other hero, Marcus, in greater depth. Marcus is an interesting character—a talented surgeon and engineer who just can’t sit still. He always has to explore, to tinker, to build. He is sociable and charismatic, yet he lives alone on a deserted tropical island. I wanted to know what it was like to be inside his mind—especially when he first meets Jon!—so I decided to write a “deleted scene” just for him. It takes place near the beginning of Icarus, so you don’t need to worry about spoilers. I invite you to read it at my website!

Enjoy!

Love, fangs, and fur ^_^

–Christine, who is oh-so-enjoying a freak South Florida cool front

www.christinedanse.com

@dansedesirable at Twitter