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August 30, 2012

Under the Microscope: Diana Cosby & TWO books

Welcome to Diana, a good friend of the PP!


Diana Cosby
Diana Cosby is an international bestselling author of Scottish medieval romantic suspense. After retiring as a Navy Chief, AGC(AW), Diana dove into her passion – writing romance novels. She is currently working on the sixth book in the award-winning MacGruder brother’s series, and is preparing for the release of her story in the anthology, “Born To Bite,” with Hannah Howell and Erica Ridley.  
 
How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  Throughout my life I’ve been an avid reader.  While serving in the Navy, a meteorologist/oceanographer, AGC(AW), I was determined that after I retired I wanted to be an author.  Once I began writing, I loved it!

August 28, 2012

Under the Microscope: Sheila Seabrook-Wedding Fever

Welcome to Sheila!
And Congratulations on Wedding Fever
Let's put you under the microscope.


How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  I’ve always been an avid reader, so when I was at home with my babies, I started writing because all of these “people” were talking to me. They didn’t care whether or not I had a family or day job or other responsibilities. They just wanted their story told and refused to let me rest until I wrote it down. And before I got the first one finished, more “people” showed up. The other day, I told my husband I’m never bored because I’m always having conversations in my head.
Sheila Seabrook

What are your three favorite books of all time? This is always such a difficult question. I’ve loved so many books over the years, have read in so many genres.

1) Anything by Jennifer Crusie (sorry, can’t just pick one, but if I had a gun to my head, it might be Welcome To Temptation, or maybe Agnes and the Hitman, or maybe … <G>)
2) Lady Luck’s Map of Vegas by Barbara Samuel
3) The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Morning, afternoon, or evening person?  Morning. It’s when my mind is the sharpest. But I have the best ideas when I’m half asleep.

August 23, 2012

Under the Microscope: Joni Fisher & Phobos: Manned Mission

 Welcome, Joni, to the Plotting Princesses!



How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  I change documents on my computer. Sometimes I break for a cup of tea and a snack. 

What are your three favorite books of all time?  The Bible, To Kill A Mockingbird, and La Morte D’Arthur (Sir Thomas Mallory’s translation).

August 22, 2012

Liese Sherwood-Fabre's thriller is a winner!


Saving Hope took First Place
in the
 mystery/thriller category of

Chanticleer Book Reviews'
Published Novel Contest



Congratulations, Liese!

August 21, 2012

Michelle Miles: Scheduling Your Writing

Remember how last month I talked about writing full-time? Yeah. So that didn’t work out. It seems my wonderful *cough* car *cough* has decided to break down. Two days before our family vacation to West Texas, the air conditioner broke. Kaput. Kaplooey. Done. Dead. Buh-bye. We drove the car anyway. It was so hot, I could have sworn even my eyeballs were hot. But we had a great vacation anyway.

Long story short the car needed repairs with a money amount that had a comma in it. Not a happy girl about that.

So I felt like I had to go back to work. Which, ya know, isn’t all bad. I did a lot of soul searching before accepting the job and realized that I really wasn’t ready, mentally or otherwise, to start writing full-time. The car repairs were an added bonus. *sarcasm*

But I’m not here to talk about that today. I’m here to talk about how scheduling your writing can save your life. Well, your writing life.

August 16, 2012

Tinkerbell's Magic Wand

I love Tinkerbell.  Since I was a little girl, I always loved the little fairy that flew at the beginning of the Disney show that came on every Sunday night. I loved to sit down in front of the television and watch all the different shows that Disney produced. When the show didn't come on, I remember crying. You have to remember those were the times before Videos and DVD's or even DVR's. You missed a show and too bad.

So many of my favorite movies were Disney movies. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Mickey Mouse, Sleeping Beauty and so many others. I loved the way that Tinkerbell would wave her wand and the castle would appear and you knew you were on your way to story land.

Last month, my husband and I, who are way too old, went to Disneyland in Anaheim, California before the Romance Writers of America's convention started. We wore ourselves out riding the rides, seeing the sights and watching small children wearing Mickey ears on top their head.

August 14, 2012

Get to Know: Beth Shriver & Annie's Truth

A big PP welcome to Beth Shriver
and she's giving away a book!
Take it away, Beth.


How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  When we moved from Colorado I had a hard time adjusting to Texas. When my friend, Shelley Shepherd Gray, published her first book, it encouraged me to write one. I’d written in magazines, papers and devotionals so I had a non-fiction back ground that helped in writing a full length novel.

What are your three favorite books of all time?  The first two books in Francine Rivers the Mark of the Lion Series and Gone with the Wind.
Beth Shriver


Morning, afternoon, or evening person?  I used to be a definite morning person but the older I get the less sleep I seem to need, and I end up staying up way too late.

Music--with or without? What kind?  I usually listen to Christian artists, but I like the oldies from the 70’s and 80’s too. I just aged myselfL

First or third POV?  I like to write first person but publishers aren’t crazy about first person POV. I’ve written four of them; Benford Peavey is a Good name, Love at First Flight, Funeral Hopper, and The Least of These. I really enjoyed writing each and every one. Two are published and I hope to find homes for the other two someday.

August 10, 2012

PP VICKI says HAPPY LAUNCH DAY for STORE WARS & A GIVEAWAY


Sassy writer Vicki Batman's newest funny fiction is:



The competition is heating up when Janie's old flame
is back in town, running his family's business.

August 9, 2012

GOALS, LISTS AND PROCRASTINATION - By Kathy Ivan

Today I did something I haven't done in a really long time. I went back over some old lists where I wrote out the things I wanted to accomplish for a particular year. Yikes! You know the kind of list I'm talking about. We make them at the end of the old year or the beginning of a new year, promising ourselves we'll make things happen, finish more projects and make changes that will affect all the areas of our lives.

While I made a few things from the lists happen, but most of them never came to fruition. It makes me a little sad so much time has passed without accomplishing the things I set out to do, year after year. (By the way, you all know I'm the Queen of Procrastination, don't you?)

More than half of 2012 has passed us by and the same pattern seems to be holding true this year as in years past. I promise myself I'll be better, keep on track toward accomplishing my goals, but before I can catch my breath another couple of months has sped by. I'm stuck in a repeating loop of sameness.

Today I want to change that, set some new goals. We still have several months left in 2012 to accomplish something momentous, stupendous (or even just a little bitty thing we keep putting off).

August 7, 2012

PP Vicki Batman on Handbag Mania!

Handbag Mania (1) -
Margaret Smith of Gardiner Maine


When I have visited my sissie in Tulsa, we always-always-always went to the flea market on the state fair grounds. Mostly, the prices are excellent, and I load up on goodies, like the homemade strawberry jam that tasted like berries, not sugar. Or vintage postcards, books, etc.

One of the first times I went to the flea market, my sissie introduced me to a woman who sold Margaret Smith of Gardiner Maine handbags. I broke down and bought a nice tote and still use it today. On a second trip, I purchased a smaller one and carried it to death.

Here's a bit about Margaret Smith:

August 2, 2012

PP Elizabeth Essex - Almost a Scandal


She's always ready for adventure.
He's almost ready for love.

 

 
It’s here! The first novel in my new Reckless Brides Trilogy, ALMOST A SCANDAL is out! And I must say I’m thrilled.

This is the story of Sally Kent, a girl who grows up in a navy family and who lives, breathes and thinks about ships all day long. A girl who is, well, a lot like me. Or the me who wanted to spend my teenage years crewing on windjammer schooners off the New England coast. The me who loved the feel of the wind on my face and the blue, blue ocean spread out in front of me. The me who was filled to the brim with the possibilities of adventures.

So there’s a little piece of me closer to the surface of this heroine than in any other of the books I’ve written. And I will say that her story was so very dear to my heart, that I didn’t try to write it for a very long time, until I felt I had the skills necessary to do Sally, and the man she loves, Lieutenant David Colyear, justice.
PP girl Elizabeth Essex!

And I think I have. But you be the judge.

Here’ a little excerpt from ALMOST A SCANDAL in which Lieutenant Colyear discovers Sally’s true identity, and that the midshipman under his command is not one Richard Kent, but his older sister:

He knew.  The knowledge was there in the quiet resignation of his voice, in the pained way he closed his eyes so he might no longer have to look at her.  She told herself it was inevitable that he should know her.  But even that cold knowledge could not alleviate the searing knot of pain radiating from her chest.
She turned away so he might not see the hot wash of tears rising in her eyes.  She would not cry.  Devil take her, she was a Kent.
“It’s funny.  All day I’ve been thinking of that summer.  The summer I spent with your family at Cliff House, there in Falmouth.  I recall it was a very fine house, with a great prospect down to the sea.”
“Oh, yes.”  She could hear the bleak, frustrated attempt at humor in her voice, as she followed his improbable segue.  “I don’t think my father could abide in any house for longer than a day, if it did not have a view of the sea.”
“It was your brother Matthew’s idea to use the time to study for our lieutenancy examinations.  Ambitious, Matthew Kent was.  Still is.  Do you remember?”
“I do.”  She remembered as if it were yesterday.  She had been old enough to envy them their careers, had hung on their every word, Col and Matthew.  But especially Col.  “Everyone was home for the same fortnight.  Matthew, Dominic, Owen, Daniel, and Father.  It was the last time we were all there, together.”
            “I recall it particularly.  The way you were then, how you sat together in the evenings and sang songs.  One of you played the mandolin.”
It had been she who played the mandolin.  Richard played the violin.  The damn instrument was still taking up space at the bottom of her sea chest.
            “You used to play that same song as Punch did this morning.  Dance to your Daddy.”
The damn song.  She should have known.  She should have anticipated that he heard everything with the same focus, the same acute attention that he saw.  But still, she could not give up.   “It’s a very old tune.”
“Yes,” he agreed calmly.  “All the men seemed to know the words.  It was a proper rousing send-off this morning.”
It was killing her, the waiting.  The waiting for his condemnation.  Knowing it was coming. Knowing she deserved it.  The heat piling up in the back of her throat kept her from answering.
“I remembered the song.”  He looked at her briefly then, and she could see the truth, the full understanding deep in his green eyes.  “Do you remember that evening, when we caught fireflies in your orchard?  The phosphorescent insects lighting up as the late twilight gave way to dark.  Do you remember?”
“Yes.”  The word tasted like misery, cold and ashen in her mouth.
He had instantly, with a few, precise words conjured up the soft magic of that evening.  She could smell the pungent green of the long grass they crushed beneath their feet, tromping about the overgrown orchard to capture the glowing insects in an empty jam jar. 
“And one landed in your hair, and I was obliged to brush it off, though it looked charming there, lighting up your ginger hair.  The green against the orange glow.”
The heat behind her eyes felt blinding.  It was worse, this slow, thoughtful meander into memory, than any torture he might have thought up.
“And we pelted your brother with windfalls for preaching at us so.”
            “Yes.”  The misery was pushing the hot tears into the corners of her eyes.  She dashed them away with the edge of her sleeve.  Devil take her.  She would not cry.  Not in front of Mr. Colyear.  No matter the provocation.
            It had been she—Sally.  She had been in the back garden with him, sitting on the high orchard wall with him by her side, lobbing apples at Richard for his mealymouthed prating.  They had laughed and laughed, and she had felt special to be allowed within the sacred circle of the young naval men.  She had been proud of her arm, as if a young man like Col would notice such a thing in a girl.
And Richard had run away to the house, and left them alone in the orchard together, she and Col, that long-ago evening.  And she had sworn he might have kissed her, but at the last moment she had shied away, and laughed and thrown more sticks to cover her awkwardness.
The knowledge was there in his eyes.  In the dark, uncompromising certainty of his gaze.  In the way his mouth flattened into a tense line, the smile banished along with the warmth of the memory.
“Just so.  Just as I thought.”  He nodded briefly, but the warmth faded out of his eyes. He began to shake his head back and forth in maddened disbelief. 
“You might have told me, Kent.  You might have spared me the-”  Something in his voice was off, rusted like a sword left too long in a sheath.  The sound of betrayal.  “You might have told Captain McAlden.  You ought to have.  But damn your eyes, you ought not to have done it at all.”
            But she had.  She had done it quite purposefully.  And she would do anything to keep it from being undone.  “Sir, please.”  She had to make him understand.    “I had no choice.  I had to come. I felt as if I should suffocate if I had to spend another day ashore. You have to understand.  You of all people-”
            You of all people, who was raised by Captain Alexander Kent, ought to understand the seriousness, the utter hell and be-damned gall of what you have done.”
            He was right.  She had known the chance she had taken.  But she was a Kent. She had recklessness bred into her bones. Calculating risk came as easily as trimming a sail or riding the crest of a wave into the shore. As easy as breathing. And it had been worth it.  The feeling she had gotten this morning, when she had been aloft—she’d never felt so perfectly right, so happy and useful, in her life.  She had only to convince him.


There they are, Sally and Col, stuck together on HMS Audacious for the length of their voyage. And in such proximity, sparks will fly, and tempers and passions alike will ignite.

She’s always ready for adventure, he’s almost ready for love.

And to celebrate, I’m giving away two copies of ALMOST A SCANDAL, along with other goodies, to two random commenters! Stop by and leave a comment with your email address for your chance to win!

 
Find Almost a Scandal at:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/almost-a-scandal-elizabeth-essex/1110919103?ean=9781250003799