Tuesday, December 22, 2015

INTRODUCING GUEST AUTHOR

 M. S. SPENCER

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When romance writers give love stories to the world, we do more than entertain – we share our hope for something better. These imaginative moments of happy-ever-after warm the soul and ripple outward. The world needs more love, and every bit helps. 

We hope you enjoy this collection of heartwarming seasonal tales and delicious recipes by twenty-one Bestselling, Award-winning, and Multi-Published Authors from the international Exquisite Quills community: Victoria Adams, Rose Anderson, E. Ayers, Beverley Bateman, Lily Bishop, Barb Caffrey, Helena Fairfax, J.D. Faver, Jennifer Garcia, Romy Gemmell, Vonnie Hughs, Susan Jaymes, Gemma Juliana, Jean Lamb, Lyndi Lamont, Zanna Mackenzie, Janis Susan May, Dee Ann Palmer, Jane Leopold Quinn, Kaye Spencer, and M. S. Spencer. 

Happy Holidays!
Exquisite Christmas   (Createspace, November 2015, print, 240 pages)

Buy links for print and digital:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018F4ACSC
Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5892101
Barnes and Noble print: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/exquisite-christmas-victoria-adams/1123047064?ean=9781519495358
Barnes and Noble ebook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/exquisite-christmas-victoria-adams/1123051071?ean=2940157928698

I’d love to hear what you think of the story:

Blog: http://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com OR http://bit.ly/1aBzraT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/msspencerromance

Twitter: www.twitter.com/msspencerauthor

Dee Ann says:

Thank you, M. S. Spencer, for sharing your story with us.  I'm looking forward to a wonderful December.

 

Saturday, December 19, 2015

MEET ROMANCE AUTHOR JENNIFER GARCIA

In this wonderful season of the year, it has been my pleasure to feature some of the authors from this quickly read and inspiring collection of their short stories. Here is a taste of one by Jennifer Garcia.    Dee Ann


     Exquisite Christmas: 21 Romance Authors Share Holiday Stories & Recipes   5ff9a-synopsis When romance writers give love stories to the world, we do more than entertain – we share our hope for something better. These imaginative moments of happy-ever-after warm the soul and ripple outward. The world needs more love, and every bit helps. We hope you enjoy this collection of heartwarming seasonal tales and delicious recipes by twenty-one Bestselling, Award-winning, and Multi-Published Authors from the international Exquisite Quills community: Victoria Adams, Rose Anderson, E. Ayers, Beverley Bateman, Lily Bishop, Barb Caffrey, Helena Fairfax, J.D. Faver, Jennifer Garcia, Romy Gemmell, Vonnie Hughs, Susan Jaymes, Gemma Juliana, Jean Lamb, Lyndi Lamont, Zanna Mackenzie, Janis Susan May, Dee Ann Palmer, Jane Leopold Quinn, Kaye Spencer, and M. S. Spencer. Happy Holidays! 4a136-add2bto2bgoodreads 3a742-excerpt Every night, as my daddy taught me, I knelt by my bed and said my prayers. But tonight, I wanted to ask for something. “Now I lay me down to sleep … I pray the Lord my soul to take. Oh, please bring me a mommy. Amen”

“Come on, Frankie. It’s time to go to the park,” my dad yelled from downstairs.

“I’m coming, Dad.”

Wearing my play clothes, a long purple shirt and black leggings, I slid my feet into my shoes and ran down the stairs. I loved the noise it made, like a herd of elephants, as my dad would say, but I always pictured horses.

One last bang rang out, as I jumped off the last step and landed on my two feet. I turned the corner to see my dad at the door with our two Cane Corso dogs, Dante and Beatrice. Dad named them after some epic poem, whatever that was. Our dogs were special, though. They were blue, well, they looked grey to me, and their hair was short and thick. I loved running my fingers through it, trying to make it stick up.

They came from Italy, some sort of mastiff. I didn’t know, really, all I knew was they were big, real big and strong. But we trained them so well that they listened to all of their commands.

Dad always let me hold Dante, and I held the leash loosely in my hand, while he healed on my left. He’d stay there, following my every move until I gave him the “free dog” command. Our walk to the park was quick and when we got there I could tell the grass had been just cut. The strong smell hit my nose. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

“Alright, you all go play, and I’ll be right here on my bench, okay?”

“Yes, Daddy.” I unclicked their leashes and wrapped them around my waist, like belts, and threw the ball for the dogs.
022ef-meettheauthor 11061979_10204619574757894_2829309785968567898_n Jennifer Garcia's love of travel began when she went to the West Coast to visit her father at the age of three. Her home until she was sixteen was a small coastal town near Boston. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. Her lifelong love for reading and writing was put aside for many years while she made her way in the world and nurtured her young family. Even though she is older, and life never seems to settle, she's finding her way. Believing she can do it all, with the help of her family, she worked on her first novel during the late hours of the night while balancing the rest of her life during the day. Jennifer believes in writing love stories that connect families and touch hearts. e6f76-authorlinks 9b273-authorwebsite e8003-amazon 63123-authorgoodreads f756c-authortwitter 67207-authorfacebook

Monday, December 14, 2015

ROMANCE FOR TEENS...AND BEYOND by BARB CAFFREY


 
You'll find the links for the print and digital version of this book of holiday stories and yummy recipes below. Meanwhile, I happily welcome Barb Caffrey, one of the other twenty authors in Exquisite Christmas, to my blog this week! I think you'll enjoy her explanation of the difference between writing for grown ups and young adults. Dee Ann


When Dee Ann Palmer agreed to allow me to write a guest blog for her, I wasn't sure what to write about. Surely you've read her excellent books and stories, which are full of realistic romance – including her two short stories in the Exquisite Christmas anthology. (I have to admit to a partiality for her characters in "Snowfall," myself.)
Then she said she'd not written any young adult stories. And as I have, why not talk about the difference between writing young adult novels with romance included as part of the story, and my stories in Exquisite Christmas, which deal with a long-term adult romance?
The main difference I've found in writing romance in my novels AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE and A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, which features a teenage couple in Bruno the Elfy and Sarah, his mostly human teenage girlfriend, and the stories "Marja's Victory" and "To Hunt the Hunter" in Exquisite Christmas, is that teen characters don't exactly know what it is that they want. Everything is ahead of them. They are experiencing love for the very first time, and aren't sure what they're supposed to be doing – or when they're supposed to be doing it. Whereas adult characters know exactly what they are doing and why they're doing it, but don't always know if their wishes are going to be reciprocated.
Anyway, as to Bruno and Sarah's story…Bruno, you see, isn't from our Earth at all. (He's from the Elfy Realm, which is in a parallel universe.) He isn't used to humans or our culture, and comes from a much more rigid type of upbringing. Where he's from, people are usually introduced to prospective partners, and Bruno's been told he's too young to start looking. And because he's an orphan and what amounts to a ward of the state back in the Elfy Realm, he never thought he had much to give anyone anyway.
And then we have Sarah, whose situation isn't what it seems. She's been told she's younger than she actually is, because her parents wanted to keep her inheritance from themselves. And she doesn't know at this point that she's not completely human…she just knows she's short, very smart, and is gifted at understanding other people's emotions. And she, too, has never thought about romance before.
So this is all new to both of them, and getting to know each other during a crisis situation (Bruno's mentor, Roberto, has been taken captive by a Dark Elf, who in turn is being aided by Sarah's parents) has added a great deal of complexity to their nascent romance.
Clear as mud, right? So perhaps I should just show you instead…
From AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, page 265-6:
“Now that you’re comfortable, will you please tell me what upset you so much?” Sarah asked.
“I will, dear,” he said. “But it won’t be easy. Will you sit beside me?”
She sat next to him on the side of the bed, midway down, and timidly took his right hand in her own. Bruno tried not to shake at the unexpected contact. He reached out for her left hand and held it, too. She let him, giving him a soft smile that told him as no words ever could that he was doing the right thing.
“Roberto told me what Lady Keisha withheld from you,” he said. “And it’s painful. I don’t want to hurt you.” He tried to pull his hands away, but Sarah tightened her grip instead.
“Ignorance is never good,” she said crisply, showing that uncommon maturity again. Then, in a different tone of voice, she said, “Look, Bruno, I don’t see how it’s going to help anything for me not to know. So please tell me?”
~*~
See, when I wrote all this, I needed to show that Bruno and Sarah were both innocents, falling in love, uncertain as to what was happening but wishing for it to continue. They aren't sure what they want, except each other; they'll fight to the death if they must for one another, and in this situation it may well come to that.
Note that Bruno does not take advantage of Sarah. He only goes as far as she'll allow. He is an extremely polite young man—er, Elfy.
So, from two youngsters just trying to figure out where their love fits into a crisis situation and behaving in an age-appropriate way, we move to my adult characters Marja and Tomas, the protagonists of "Marja's Victory" and "To Hunt the Hunter." Marja is a shapeshifter and a woman of size; she is not young, and she doesn't care who knows it. And her lover, Tomas, is a telepathic mountain Troll, eight feet tall…both of them have found one another congenial in both the business aspect (they are bounty hunters and detectives, of sorts) and of course as romantic partners.
Because I'm dealing with two mature individuals who've known each other for quite some time, different elements come into play. Marja can be anything she wants, and can take any form she wants – but I have a hunch that before she met Tomas, she wasn't accepted much for herself or her talents.
For example, after Marja and Tomas find a thief in "To Hunt the Hunter," Marja says this:

"She doesn't love you, Stefan." I couldn't afford to show him any empathy—the man was a thief—but inside, I understood. It hurt to be rejected by someone you thought you loved.
::I'm here now, and I love you. Those other fools who passed on you do not matter anymore. So who cares about them?:: Tomas's voice whispered into my mind.
~*~
While this is a very brief excerpt, it gets across the point that Marja knows how it feels to be rejected. And Tomas tells her, "It doesn't matter anymore," and calls the people who treated her ill "fools."
Isn't that what we want, as adults? Someone who understands us, and will buck us up when we're feeling down?

But that's not the end of the story with Marja and Tomas…oh, no. Because you see, Tomas wants to make it legal with Marja, and he's not above a wee bit of trickery in how he's going to go about doing it. (Further author sayeth not…at least, not about this.)
To my mind, writing about adults in love is a little different than writing about teens. Adults know exactly what they're after, while teens are still figuring it all out. But when love strikes, it's all new to the protagonists, regardless of age…the trick is in finding that newness, that special feeling, and making other people feel it, too.
 

The Exquisite Christmas e-book is available now at:
 Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018F4ACSC
Barnes & Noble, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/exquisite-christmas-victoria-adams/1123051071
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/exquisite-christmas
and coming soon to  iBooks and other retailers.











 

 
 
 

 

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Sleighing and Mistletoe for an Exquisite Christmas

 
My story in the Exquisite Christmas anthology, A Kiss and a Promise, takes place on a wintry Yule afternoon in Victorian times. The year is 1887 and the winter was cold and snowy, a perfect setting for a sleighing party to collect holly and mistletoe to decorate the house. And provide a chance for a kiss under the mistletoe… 

Excerpt:

Sophia gave directions to the best spot for gathering holly and mistletoe, and Harry steered the horses in that direction, bells attached to the harness jingling with each step. The weather had been beastly for the last month, but it had turned the estate into a winter fairyland. Silent snow-covered fields stretched as far as she could see, and each tree sported a layer of white, softening the stark look of the winter scene. The sky was overcast, and she suspected Harry was right to rush them along.

As soon as the sleigh stopped, Reggie jumped out, made a snowball and threw it at Cora as she exited the sleigh. She yelped and chased Reggie, Phoebe on her heels squealing with excitement. Sophia watched them with amusement. Oh, to be a child again.

But she was long past that sort of behavior. She’d had a season in London, after all. She glanced at Harry and caught a gleam in his eye. “Do not even think of joining those hooligans.”

A Kiss and a Promise is a prequel to How To Woo... a Reluctant Bride. You get a glimpse of Lydia and her brother Harry when they were young and carefree. The story also introduces two sisters, Sophia and Cora, who will have their own stories in the How To Woo series. 

The Exquisite Christmas e-book is now available at:
 Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018F4ACSC
Barnes & Noble, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/exquisite-christmas-victoria-adams/1123051071
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/exquisite-christmas
and coming soon to  iBooks and other retailers.


Author bio:

Lyndi Lamont is the racy alter ego of author Linda McLaughlin, who writes historical and Regency Romance. Since becoming Lyndi Lamont, she has discovered that writing sexy romance is a license to be naughty, at least between the pages of a book.

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You can find more about the author and her works here:

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/LyndiLamont 
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/LyndiLamont 
Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LyndiLamont/ 
Twitter https://twitter.com/LyndiLamont