Posts Tagged ‘novella’

An Author’s Stress Relievers

Rebecca York | August 21st, 2012

The clothes dryer is broken. The car is in the shop. The cat threw up on the bed. And you have to lose five pounds before your physical next week.

Recognize any of that? Modern life is full of stress. But there are ways to cope.

I turn to books. Sometimes it’s books by other authors. Often it’s the book I’m writing. When my husband and I have to wait in line for something, he asks me, “Do you have a book to read?”

I usually answer, “I don’t need one. I’m thinking about my next scene.” And of course, there’s nothing like falling off a curb while you’re working out your plot, which I did with my latest Carina release, SHATTERED MAGIC, the next novella in my Chronicles of Arandal series. It’s set in the medieval-type fantasy world I created when I wrote DARK MAGIC. Fantasy on another planet is an ideal escape from everyday life. Which is why I’m glad to be back there with SHATTERED MAGIC, and I’ve got another story in the works, DANGEROUS MAGIC.

SHATTERED IMAGE Cover

Do the titles suggest a theme? In my fictional village of Valleyhold, you don’t have to worry about electric lights, dishwashers and putting on weight. You can fix just about anything with your paranormal powers. Fun and easy. But there’s a downside to relying on magic. The rulers of Arandal, a nearby kingdom, think magic is evil, and if you’re caught using it, you will surely be executed.

Life in Valleyhold is fine for my heroine, Rowan, until an evil sorcerer claims her for his bride-to-be. Desperate to escape his clutches, she flees the only home she’s ever known–and meets up with a heroic, handsome guy named Grant, who saves her from a dragon. Maybe he’s the solution to her problem. If she gives him her virginity, she won’t be a suitable bride for the man she loathes.

Everything’s going according to plan, until she discovers her lover is really Prince Grantland of Arandal. And when he spies her using magic, he vows to kill her. How’s that for a conflicted relationship?

Working out their complicated problems was a good way for me to get away from the less satisfying aspects of my own life. The refrigerator is bare? The cats are scratching up the Oriental rugs? The sewer line needs flushing out? No problem. I can go have some fun in Arandal. And I hope you’ll enjoy going there with me.

Here I am at my new treadmill desk.

Rebecca at Treadmill Desk

What’s your favorite stress reliever? I will be giving one person who comments on my blog a copy of my previous Arandal novella, DARK MAGIC on CD.

Buy now: Carina Press store | Amazon.com | BarnesandNoble.com

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USA Today best-seller, Rebecca York (aka Ruth Glick) lives in Maryland with her husband and three cats. She has traveled around the world (most recently to Belgium and Holland), flown in a glider plane, and gone down in a submarine. She is one of the few recipients of RWA’s Centennial Award. She has written more than 100 romance novels, including paranormal romantic suspense for Berkley and romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue, including her long-running 43 Light Street series, set in Baltimore. Her latest release is SHATTERED MAGIC for Carina Press.. She is the winner of a PRISM Award, two RT BOOK REVIEWS Career Achievement Awards, and 5 NJRW Golden Leaf Awards. Two of her books were RITA finalists.

Twitter:       @rebeccayork43
Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebecca-York/122426234846?ref=hl
Blog:              http://www.onromancewriting.com
Web site:      http://www.rebeccayork.com

To hear me read an excerpt of SHATTERED MAGIC, listen to my recent podcast interview on Other_Worlds_of_Romance.

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Posted in Authors, Behind the Scenes, Books, Carina Press, Contest/Giveaway, Cover Art | 6 Comments »

Coping with Burnout

Rebecca_Maher | May 29th, 2012

Ever feel like your life has lost its spark? Like you’re just going through the motions and not really feeling anything?

That’s what happens to the hero and heroine of my contemporary romance novella, Snowbound with a Stranger. Dannie’s a nurse and Lee is an oncology social worker—two jobs that would knock the stuffing out of anyone.

Snowboundcoversmall Nurses, social workers, teachers, doctors, child care providers, police officers, firefighters—the people whose dedicated service keeps our community running—they amaze me. Their work is grueling both physically and emotionally, and yet somehow they manage to do their jobs gracefully while still maintaining relationships with other human beings and not collapsing.

How do they do it?

When I was much younger, I worked for community-based nonprofits. There I met people whose commitment completely floored me. Somehow they managed to survive the work we did—which was often unspeakably difficult—with their sense of humor and compassion intact. The same was true when I became a teacher—long hours (before, during and after school) plus the emotional impact of caring for so many sensitive souls, equaled an essentially zombie-like state at the end of the day. Yet many people teach successfully for decades.

Not everyone. In service fields, there are plenty of people who hate their work. Who resent it. Whose personal lives suffer because of it. Who do their jobs woodenly or spitefully or barely at all.

But those people who hold on to the energy and spirit of their work, who show love, compassion and kindness every day to those they serve—how do they pull it off? For twenty, thirty, forty years? How do they manage to not burn out?

This is a question that comes up for Dannie and Lee in Snowbound with a Stranger. Trapped in a cabin during a massive blizzard, with no one to take care of but themselves, they begin to see how caretaking has taken its toll on them. And then they help each other make it right.

They also have sex a lot. (Because they’re stuck in a cabin. And it’s medically necessary. Or something.)

In the coming weeks I’ll be hosting a guest series on my blog in which I ask six service providers—a firefighter, a union organizer, a social worker, an ER nurse, a teacher and a doula—to talk plainly about what burnout feels like and how to survive it. Come check out the discussion every Monday from June 4th to July 9th.

Today, I’d love to hear your stories. Have you ever burned out on a job that required taking care of other people? If so, what did you do to work through it? Did you read a metric ton of romance novels? (That’s what I did.)

A free copy of Snowbound with a Stranger goes to one random commenter, so join in the chat!

Thanks for reading, and remember: you’re important too.

PhotobucketRebecca Rogers Maher lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and children. She is the author of the Recovery Trilogy—I’ll Become the Sea, Snowbound with a Stranger and the forthcoming Fault Lines (September 2012)—from Carina Press. You can learn more about her at her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Posted in Authors, Books, Carina Press, Contest/Giveaway, Cover Art | 15 Comments »

Writing in Paradise

Rebecca York | August 3rd, 2011

DARK MAGIC Cover

It’s a hot afternoon, but I’m outside on the screened porch, enjoying the world around me.  Cone flowers and tall phlox sway in a gentle breeze.  A dove is eating the birdseed I put out a while ago.  Cat birds have come to splash in the birdbath.  The koi in the pond glide in and out of the cascading waterfall.  Two of my cats are sleeping nearby.

This is the perfect place to write.  If I’m trying to think of a word or a sentence or struggling to figure out a plot point, I can look up and enjoy the garden for a few minutes.

I think most writers have other creative outlets as well.  One of mine is gardening.  I love putting in plants and flowers and watching them grow.  I love moving rocks around the pond until I get their placement just right.  Weeding the flower beds isn’t as much fun, but it’s part of the job.

I edited a lot of my August Carina novella, DARK MAGIC, while sitting here in my little Eden.  That story took me away to another world entirely–one I’d made up for my own pleasure.  I started with the idea of a kingdom under siege and a virgin princess who thinks she can save her father’s people by sacrificing herself to the dragon who saved them long ago.  She doesn’t know her plans aren’t going to work out the way she expected.  A dark, mysterious, sexy stranger has taken the dragon’s place, and he wants to awaken Princess Devon’s sensuality rather than ravage her while she’s tied to a stake.

I had a lot of fun with this story–with Devon’s sexual awakening and also with her courage in choosing a heroic way to save her people–rather than the shameful fate her father had planned for her.

This isn’t contemporary romantic suspense, which is what I usually write.  Instead, I get to explore a fantasy realm where women are only pawns in the games that men play.  Of course Devon’s not willing to stick to her assigned role, which is what made her fun to write.

You can read an excerpt of DARK MAGIC here .

What kind of heroines do you like best?  Or do you care, as long as she’s the right match for the hero?

On August 8, I will give away an autographed copy of my classic Harlequin Intrigue, NOWHERE MAN, to a randomly selected reader who comments on my above heroine questions.

A USA Today Best-Selling Author, Rebecca York is a 2011 recipient of the Romance Writers of America Centennial Award.  Her career has focused on romantic suspense, often with paranormal elements.

Her 16 Berkley books and novellas include her nine-book werewolf “Moon” series.  KILLING MOON was a launch book for the Berkley Sensation imprint. She has written over 50 books for Harlequin Intrigue, many in her popular 43 Light Street series.

She has written for Carina Press, Harlequin, Berkley, Dell, Tor, Kensington, Tudor, Scholastic, and Pageant Books.

Her many awards include two Rita finalist books. She has two Career Achievement awards from Romantic Times:  for Series Romantic Suspense and for Series Romantic Mystery. And her Peregrine Connection series won a Lifetime Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense Series.

Many of her novels have been nominated for or won RT Reviewers Choice awards.  In addition, she has won a Prism Award, several New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf awards and numerous other chapter awards.

Web site:  www.RebeccaYork.com

Twitter:    @rebeccayork43

Facebook: www.facebook.com/RuthGlick

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Posted in Authors, Behind the Scenes, Books, Carina Press, Contest/Giveaway, Cover Art, Excerpt, Writing/Submissions Advice | 7 Comments »

The Problem with Princesses

Bettie Sharpe | June 28th, 2011

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.

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Posted in Authors, Books | 21 Comments »

Does size matter?

Tara Stevens | March 31st, 2011

My conversion to the “dark side” of digital sometimes makes me wonder if the 1, 000-page printed tome is already on its way out. Recently one of my colleagues here at Love Central left a big fat fantasy book on his desk on full display. Being a naturally nosy, open-plan office, we immediately descended on it en masse and fawned over it as if it were a dinosaur artifact. “How can you read that?” someone asked. “It’s soooo long!”

Last year I read one of the best (and biggest) books I’ve read in a long time – Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts – about a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escapes prison and flees to India. It was unlike anything I’d read before, it made me cry, and I was truly sorry when it ended, but I knew while I was immersed in it that it was going to take a full­-time reading commitment. Since I feel bad when I cheat on books with other books, I cast aside other tempting shorter works and was faithful to Mr. Roberts.

The thing is, though, we live in a society where leisure time is incredibly fragmented and rare.  We steal moments of entertainment for ourselves wherever and however we can. Usually this means an hour of TV here, a couple hours at the movies there, 5 mins on the interwebs at work, or too much time playing Angry Birds on the commute home.

I don’t think I’m alone in considering word length or book size as one of the key factors for or against deciding to read a book. To me, there’s just something about a shorter story that’s innately appealing in our time-deprived, short-attention-span lives.

Although I’m still known as the Romantic Suspense Go-To Girl around these parts, lately I’ve been branching out and reading new-to-me niches like male/male. “Devoured” is about the closest word I can find to describe how I inhaled the two male/male novellas that were assigned to me over the past few months.  What struck me most is that they were the perfect length to introduce me to something outside my usual reading comfort zone. Getting a taste of the niche has definitely made me crave more man-on-man editorial in the future!

Now I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a place for books with a 100, 000 word count. On the contrary! When I’m fully immersed in a genre or waiting for one of my favourite authors’ new releases to come out (that means you, J.D. Robb), my philosophy is “the bigger the better,” because I don’t want to leave the world they’ve created or say goodbye to the characters I’ve fallen in love with. So, a lower word count isn’t necessarily better, but it is something to consider in the electronic age.

For me, a book doesn’t have to be dense to be developed. At the same time, I’m not going to read a novella if the characters aren’t compelling and the plot is skimpy on believability. I think one of the reasons the novella market is growing is because you get straight to the story and get to sink your teeth into the action. It also doesn’t feel as daunting to start a novella as it does to begin a mammoth book.

So what are your thoughts on book size/word length? Does it matter to you at all?

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Posted in Books, Carina Press | 41 Comments »