5 SECRETS (What No One Knows About My Book)

 

Our guest author today is Gemma Juliana, who is going to share some tidbits about the writing of her book that no one knows--until today.

GEMMA JULIANA is a multi-published author who lives in an enchanted cottage in north Texas with her handsome hero, brave teen son and a comical dog who is really a human in disguise. She loves making new friends and hearing from readers. Exotic coffee and chocolate fuel her creativity. She writes romance, mystery and suspense with a splash of the paranormal. You’ll find alpha heroes in the Sheikhs of the Golden Triangle series and modern heroes in To Kiss A Leprechaun and Autumn Masquerade. More books coming soon.

Five Secrets about The Sheikhs of the Golden Triangle Series
1. Oonagh (The Amulet), the Celtic witch, created the amulet that has protected Zahiria for centuries. She’s alive… perhaps she’s reincarnated, or an immortal. Who is she now? Hmmm…
2. Sheikhs Adnan (The Sheikh’s Spy) and Rick (The Sheikh’s Crowning) know there’s oil in the Golden Triangle. What they don’t know yet is that at the heart of the kingdoms is a pocket of very special gold like none found anywhere on the planet.
3. If you thought the members of the Burindi royal family are evil humans you are only half right. They descend from a mating that took place long ago between a human and a vampire. Makes you wonder about their slave trade business that flows through their fortified castle…
4. “A terrible price was paid in the making of the amulet, and it must be put right before peace can take root in the kingdoms.” Let’s just say it has something to do with what a sly Celtic witch did to a smitten djinn. No, I really can’t say more!
5. Christmas Spirits takes place at Winterthorne Castle, in Ireland. The castle holds a secret few know about nowadays. Queen Anna, who was murdered long ago, knew the secret. Oonagh, the Celtic witch, is from her bloodline. I based this castle estate on an actual estate where I spent much time when I was young. I also knew a woman in Ireland who inspired Oonagh the Celtic witch, although mine is a fictitious character.

 

Blurb from The Sheikhs of the Golden Triangle series

The Sheikh’s Spy is the story of Sheikh Adnan of Zahiria and Olympia Green, the courageous woman who risked her life to save his.When Olympia Green becomes collateral against her brother’s gambling debt, she is whisked away by a dark, brooding sheikh and locked up in the women’s quarters of his desert fortress. Being a sex toy in a wealthy sheikh’s pleasure chest does not suit her.

When she overhears a plot to assassinate a neighboring sheikh, she decides to take a gamble of her own, and escape from her prison in order to warn him.

When an unknown foreign woman shows up in his palace in the middle of the night, Sheikh Adnan distrusts her motives. Once he learns she was kidnapped and has risked her life in order to save his, he will stop at nothing to keep her by his side.
The stakes are already high. When Adnan learns that the neighboring kingdoms are involved in illegal business dealings that will shake the region, he sets about bringing them to justice. So far, the famous amulet has protected Zahiria. Will it continue to do so?To Buy The Sheikhs of the Golden Triangle Series go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/-/B00BLA94AK/ref=cm_sw_su_e

You can find Gemma on her website at http://gemmajuliana.com/

On Twitter https://twitter.com/Gemma_Juliana and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gemma.juliana

Thanks for checking out Gemma and her secrets. If you have any comments or questions, Gemma will be around to answer them today. And don’t forget to check back next Thursday to find out even more author secrets about their book. 
   

Brenda Novak’s Annual Online Auction

I was going to do my monthly reviews, but I’ve been traveling and I was at a nursing reunion in snowy Calgary and I didn’t get the books finished – so I’ll do them next week.

Instead, this week, I’m going to do a plug for author, Brenda Novak’s Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research. Brenda’s son has diabetes and she started the auction 10 years ago to help raise money for Juvenile Diabetes Research. Over the ten years she’s raised over two million dollars for diabetes research. The Auction goes for the month of May.-5-14Authors, publishers, agents, writers, friends and others contribute awesome gifts for the auction. You can get condos for vacation, Coach purses, jewelry, critiques from authors and editors, meet authors and agents for breakfast and lunches, and so much more. There are special daily deals and raffles.

I contribute a Canadian basket and I’d love to have people bid on it. I cover the postage to mail it to whoever wins.

I also bid on a few items. Sometimes I get them, sometimes i don’t. I managed lunch with one of my favorite authors, Karen Rose. She’s a lovely lady.

So please, at least check out the site and some of the many items listed.

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Home.taf

And if anyone else has an item listed, or has had experience bidding on an item, I’d love to hear about it.

Our guest author today is Janet Lane Walters, who is going to share some tidbits about the writing of her book that no one knows--until today.

Janet lane Walters was born in Wilkinsburg, Pa on July 17, 1936 reported to be the hottest day of the summer. She has been a published author since 1968 beginning with short stories and moving into novels when an editor told her a short story sounded like a synopsis for a novel. In the 197os and 1980s she published 4 sweet nurse romance novels. Then she returned to school to earn a BS in Nursing and a BA in English. Returning to work as a nurse to help put four children through college she put her writing career on hold. In 1993 she retired from nursing and began writing again. A new nurse romance followed in print. Then she discovered electronic publishing and since 1998 has been electronically published.

Janet calls herself an eclectic writer since she moved from genre to genre. There are mysteries featuring Katherine Miller a former nurse who seems to stumble over bodies wherever she goes. Using her interest in Astrology, she has several series that use Astrology as a premise for the stories. Once she earned enough money to travel to Ireland by casting charts for people. She has many books in the romance genre, some of them are contemporary and are nurse romance, and others fall into the fantasy or paranormal forms of romance. Interested in reincarnation, she has used this as a jumping point for at least two novels. Two of her novels deal with alternate worlds using a love affair with Ancient Egypt.

Under her other name J.L. Walters she has written a YA fantasy series called Affinities. She has also written a non-fiction book when her co-author Jane Toombs that won the EPIC Award in 2003 for best Non-fiction. During her career she has received other awards and has a number of great reviews.

Besides her four adult children, she has seven grandchildren. Five of them are the models for the YA series. The other two arrived too late to play a large role in the series. Four of her grandchildren are bi-racial and 3 are Chinese so the eclectic even invades her family. She has been married to the same man for more than 50 years. He's a psychiatrist who refuses to cure her obsession for writing.

MELODIC DREAMS  

Five Secrets

1. You may learn things about me as well as Melodic Dreams. I really like writing medical kind of romances and was questing for something other than nurse/doctor as hero and heroine. My daughter who is an Occupational Therapist popped into my head and so I picked her brain for some of the details. Problem was I almost became lost in all the information and ended up with much more than I really needed. Maybe another book will find a few of the interesting things I discovered.

2. In the past I composed music and even had some pieces I'd written performed. My experiences with composing music went into developing Jay's working habits and the pain of not being able to make the fingers move without pain. Jay the hero is a driven man. He has put nearly everything and everyone out of his life except his child. The arrival of his supposed child troubles him. The boy looks like Jay's dead wife except for the eyes. He feels he doesn't have time for this since he wants to concentrate on the music he's been commissioned to write.

3. When casting for a name for the four year old child I was reading a note from one of my publishers and the boy was named Jamie after her. Choosing names is very important. Finding the right name makes the character pop. Often wished I could have done this with my children. Fitted their name to what their personality became. Jamie is very important to the story. He wants a father and he decides his father is "sour" a term his grandmother used to call him when he was tired and grouchy. Jamie decides his father should have candy to sweeten him.

4. Maria loves her nephew but she has been involved with him since his birth as a premature infant. She strongly feels he should have a connection to his father, Some of the feelings found here were triggered by family members who either did not know their father or their fathers had no time for them. Maria turned out to be a very stubborn woman and able to take on a stubborn man.

5. The town created for these early stories doesn't actually exist. I'm not even sure I know where it is other that in the northeastern part of the United States and several hours from a large city. The town needed to be large enough to support a hospital, have the kind of landscape I wanted so instead of taking a place I knew and changing the name, the town is totally a fictional place.

Blurb from MELODIC DREAMS

When Maria and a child she says is his arrives on Jay’s doorsteps, he is in the middle of composing a musical. Though the four year old has his eyes, Jay can’t be sure this isn’t a scam. He believes his dead wife took steps to rid herself of the child. A need for his assistance to help with childcare while she works is Maria’s reason for arriving in Fern Lake. She also believes her nephew should know his father. Can Jay accept and learn to love his child and deal with the attraction to a woman who physically looks like his dead wife? Can Maria deal with his trust issues and a threat from her own family?

To Buy MELODIC DREAMS go to: Melodic Dreams (Moon Child)  

You can find Janet on Twitter JanetL717

http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/ 
Website http://janetlanewalters.com/home 
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_fbid=113639528680724

Thanks for checking out Janet and her secrets. If you have any comments or questions, Janet will be around to answer them today.

And don’t forget to check back next Thursday to find out even more author secrets about their book. 

DO YOU WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW?

For years people always said “Write what you know.”  

I’m sure people must have said that to you at sometime. My problem is I write murder and suspense. Personally I don’t know anything about that, and I wasn’t prepared to go out and stalk someone or kill them.

So I do research. I take workshops at conferences with FBI, Police, Coroners, etc. and also online. I have books on WITSEC, The Body Farm, serial killers, forensics and poisons, just to name a few. I use Google and research online for information on murder and also for settings. You can find almost anything about a town or city or the area. And you can also ask about things on loops and get great information.

I asked a friend who writes historical, didn’t she find she had to do a lot of research. She laughed and said once you had the basics for a period in time – clothing, food, customs and language it didn’t change a lot. She said she couldn’t write contemporary because of the amount of research involved.  And she’s right. Things keep changing. A few years ago no one had cell phones and tablets.

So – do you write what you know? Do you do research?  Do you go to the library to do research? Or do you do most of your research online? Or maybe you’re lucky enough to travel to all your settings.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on research for today’s writer.

You Want to Throw the Book Against the Wall – Why?

 

 

Welcome to our Round Rhobin where we all post our thoughts on the same topic. I love reading everyone else’s take on the topic. It amazes me how we can all come at it from so many different viewpoints. I always learn something from everyone’s blog. I’m off to see that the rest of our group has to say. I hope you enjoy my post.

Has this ever happened to you?

You loved the blurb. The first page sounded interesting. You bought the book.

You took it home, excited to be drawn into the story and spend the next few hours with characters you loved, following them on their journey.  (Or if it’s an e-book, you curl up in your most comfy place with your e-reader expecting the same experience.)

You read the first few pages.

Okay, not quite what you expected but maybe it will get better. You force yourself to read another chapter. Hope is fading. How did this book ever get published?

There must be some redeeming features. You paid for the book so you plow through a few more pages and then (if it’s a paper book) throw it against the wall, stomp on it and go find another book.

Why? What were the reasons you couldn’t finish the book? What happened to the promise to carry you off into a wonderful read?

 

This has happened to me. There are many reasons why a book disappoints. You might not relate to the characters and find you don’t care what happens to them, or the characters are “to stupid to live.” You know – there’s a killer in the house and the heroine decides to look for him herself and goes down into the dark basement alone. Arghh!
 

Or maybe the story doesn’t start in the right place and you have pages and pages of back story. You know what her mother had for breakfast and that the heroine painted her toe nails pink.  Or here might be too much detail and description. There are pages of furniture, curtain styles and patterns, flowers or details of each course of food eaten.  You’re either falling asleep or banging you head against the wall. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but you know the books I mean.) And none of these details move the story forward.
 

Maybe there’s little or no conflict or the conflict could be resolved if the h/h sit down and talk to each other. The end – and it’s only page 10, but no, the author won’t let them talk and the story continues to drag on.
 

I could probably think of a few more things but I’d rather here what drives you crazy and could make you throw the book against the wall. Why do you quit reading a book before you finish it?
 

Now please check out the rest of our wonderful group and their blogs about why they might throw that book against the wall. Next up is Rhobin Courtright - http://rhobinleecourtright.com

The other ones are Heidi M. Thomas  http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com
Anne Stenhouse at http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Diane Bator at http://dbator.blogspot.ca
Fiona McGier at http://www.fionamcgier.com
Margaret Fieland at http://margaretfieland.com/my_blog
Ginger Simpson at http://mizging.blogspot.com
Geeta Kakade at http://geetakakade.blogspot.com/
Connie Vines at http://connievines.blogspot.com/

Check them all out.

5 SECRETS (What No One Knows About My Book)

Our guest author today is Angela Smith, who is going to share some tidbits about the writing of her book that no one knows--until today.

During her senior year in high school, Angela Smith was dubbed most likely to write a novel, and that has been her dream ever since her mother read Brer Rabbit to her and her sister so often that they were able to recite it back to each other before actually learning to read. She’s always enjoyed stories about the adventure of love, and getting involved in the legal field developed her love of suspense. A certified paralegal, work gives her perfect fodder for her romantic suspense stories. When not caring for her small farm or spending time with her husband of two decades, she enjoys creating, reading, and dreaming of the places she’ll visit one day.

FATAL SNAG

1. My husband gave me the idea of the groom being kidnapped at his own wedding. Of course, he thought someone should die and I argued that I couldn’t allow a hero, or past hero, to die in my second book.
2. I tend to add tidbits in my stories about things that interest me, For instance I have always been infatuated with Native American history. I used to write book reports on American Indians and read just about every American Indian romance novel back in my younger years. Although Fatal Snag is not an American Indian romance, Chayton learns about his Sioux heritage and meets his mother for the first time.

3. I had to re-write the last climatic scene during the editing process with my editor and it is not the original I had written. It is better, though.

4. Fatal Snag is the 2^nd in a stand-alone series and the characters in this novel were first introduced in Burn on the Western Slope.

5. Fatal Snag was not the original title of this story before I submitted. I had a long list of possible titles and had originally intended to l keep my standalone series with similar titles, but Fatal Snag overtook all the others.

Blurb for Fatal Snag

Hollywood fashion consultant Naomi Fisher is happy to use her obsessive-compulsive planning to assist with her cousin's wedding, but her history with the sexy and sullen Chayton Chambers, the groom’s brother, terrifies her. When the groom is kidnapped at his own wedding, Chayton and Naomi rush to find an important relic to satisfy the ransom before her cousin becomes a widow before a bride. Naomi trades garters for guns as survival, and love becomes a deadly game impossible to resist.

To Buy A Fatal Snag go to:
Crimson Romance: http://goo.gl/84nFbt
Amazon:  http://ASIN.cc/sPcNqL
Barnes and Noble: http://www.bn.com/s/9781440580628
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781440580628

You can contact Angela at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAngelaSmith
Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelaswriter
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7173505.Angela_Smith
Website: http://www.loveisamystery.com
Blog: http://www.loveisamystery.com/my-blog
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/authorangelasmith
Email: angela@loveisamystery.com
Google+: https://plus.google.com/104911226706379689979/posts?partnerid=gplp0
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/asmithauthor/
Crimson Romance: http://www.crimsonromance.com/crimson-romance-ebooks/crimson-romance-books-by-author/angela-smith/

Thanks for checking out Angela and her secrets. If you have any comments or questions Angela will be around to answer them today.

And don’t forget to check back next Thursday to find out even more author secrets about their book. 

HAPPY 88TH BIRTHDAY, QUEEN ELIZABETH II

April 21^st is the actual birthday of our beloved HRH Queen Elizabeth II. She was born in 1926. She also celebrates an official birthday on a Saturday in June, which she will celebrate publicly. At 88 years of age she continues to rule our country along with her consort and husband, HRH, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, who is almost 93 years of age. She celebrated her birthday today quietly at home.

By now most of you know I’m Canadian. Instead of a President we have a Prime Minister and the monarchy. Our present queen is Queen Elizabeth II, who became our queen on Feb 6, 1952 and has ruled for 62 years. Her representative is the Governor General of Canada at the federal level and by a Lieutenant Governor in each of the ten provinces. The prime minister and the ministers in his cabinet are all appointed by the Governor General on behalf of Queen Elizabeth.

In the political world, our Queen doesn't do that much - she's not supposed to. She's the personification of Canada and remains neutral on political matters.

The Queen herself has a very personal involvement with Canada. This involvement is based on a deeply held affection for and loyalty to a country that she first toured as Princess Elizabeth in 1951 and to which she has returned over twenty times since. She has often stated that it was her 'second home', feeling totally at ease in Canada, meeting as many Canadians as possible from all walks of life and backgrounds in the communities where they live.

The Queen retains a special relationship with The Canadian Armed Forces, acting as Colonel-in-Chief of various regiments.

Another form of involvement is her support for the work of Canadian charities and public organisation such as the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Nurses' Association, the Canadian Red Cross Society, the Royal Canadian Humane Association, and Save the Children - Canada.

While there are some who feel we should separate from the monarchy, most Canadians, myself included, love our beloved Queen Elizabeth II.

              Happy Birthday, Your Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.