Valentine's Day Booksigning!

I'm excited to be taking part in an awesome event celebrating romance on February 14th. An amazing group of WisRWA members in Chippewa Falls, WI, have organized an author meet-and-greet and booksigning for nearly 20 authors at a local coffee shop in Chippewa Falls. Authors from Wisconsin and Minnesota will be there, eager to meet readers and talk romance on the most romantic day of the year. There will be goody bags and great fun for all. I hope you'll join us for this debut event.

Guest Interview

Today I have the pleasure of visiting another Wild Rose Press author, Abigail Owen, as a guest on her blog. She and I share a fascination for big cats (like mountain lions), fantasy and paranormal elements, and great epic fantasy (The Lord of the Rings).

Stop by and see what information she coaxed out of me in her interview: http://abigailowen.com/2014/12/23/bloodstone/

"Write what you know" Good Advice? Or Not?

Starting Monday, Nov. 24, I'm guest blogging on fellow Wild Rose Press author, Debbie Peterson's blog: http://debbie-peterson.blogspot.com/

I was approached by an aspiring romance author recently and that made me think about the advice often given to writers to "write what you know." I'm in general agreement with that advice. Not knowing what you're writing about definitely is a dead giveaway--and turnoff--for readers. Having read and graded many a student essay where the writer clearly did no research gives me the authority to pronounce that judgment. 

However, I began to wonder about how that advice applies to fictional worlds that have never existed--fantasy, sci-fi, some paranormal. If you'd like to find out what I came up with--and join the conversation--drop by http://debbie-peterson.blogspot.com/ and add your thoughts.

Halloween Giveaway

'Tis the season for falling leaves, whistling winds, and squirrel feet that sound like elephants crunching through dry leaves. This is the spooky time of year when magic and curses seem most likely to be real. After all, it's getting darker every day and there are those noises in the night and we sense that winter is coming and it's time to hunker down and wrap up tight and turn on lots of lights to drive away the deepening night...

Brr! Did I make you shiver? I gave myself a good shake.

Anyway, in honor of the season of magic, I'm giving away one print copy of BLOODSTONE on Goodreads. What better way to hunker down for the season than with a book about magic and a curse, and lovers that can come together only in the dark? Click on the link to the left to enter. Time is running out, as the giveaway ends on Halloween!

Blog Appearance and Author Panel

This is a busy week. On Wednesday, Oct. 15, I'm guest-blogging on fellow Wild Rose Press author Barbara Edwards' blog, discussing my first book, THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE. Stop by and leave a comment: barbaraedwardscomments.wordpress.com

Then on Thursday, Oct. 16, I'll be taking part in a panel of 9 romance authors at the Marathon County Public Library, A NIGHT OF ROMANCE. Cool name! The library is doing a fantastic job of publicizing our Wisconsin Romance Writers of America (WisRWA) event at Night of Romance. I'm hoping to meet new readers and also fellow writers.

Finally, WisRWA has a new Pinterest board! My covers are up on the Fantasy Romance tag. Check it out at pinterest.com/wisrwa/

Enjoy the blustery fall weather!

Alternate Plans and a Giveaway Contest

You know how, no matter how thoroughly you plan, things don't work out quite according to plan? I'd been planning on a guest blog to publicize my giveaway of THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE on The Romance Review's Fall Into Love Party, but plans fell through.

Rather than let my preparatory work go to waste, I'm putting up two of the questions I wrote answers to because I think they're good questions.

Tell me why you wrote THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE.

THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE is the book of my heart. I conceived the storyline and characters the summer before I began college. I’d been reading THE FOUNTAINHEAD, GONE WITH THE WIND, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The world was full of turmoil in the Middle East (no change there) and racism in the US (not much change there either). I wanted to tell a story about a broken country and the characters that would stitch it back together again. They would have to overcome class and ethnic divisions to do so.

While thematically that was the premise, the heart of the story was the against-all-odds love that grows between my warrior prince hero and my displaced healer heroine. While everything is stacked against them, what binds them together is honor. They can—and do—trust each other with their lives.

You’re multi-published. Which of your heroes is your favorite and why?

That’s a hard one. I love my heroes, never more than when I’m writing their individual books, but they are very different people.

Prince Arn is a swashbuckler, a charismatic leader of men who puts his life on the line—recklessly, some would say—to single-mindedly pursue the lost Crown and restore the Kingdom. Having survived the assassination of his family at age 12, he loves no one, trusts but a few, and gambles daily to achieve what’s rightfully his.

Durren Drakkonwehr of BLOODSTONE was once a warrior, descendant of a long line of dragon-keepers, but his personal failure has led to his land’s collapse and the curse that makes his life a living hell. He lives in isolation, determined to protect his people from his cursed appearance and too proud to die at the hand of subhuman beings.

Flip sides of the warrior coin, one could say—success versus failure—but both scarred inside and out, with stone walls around their hearts that have to be chipped away by the heroines.

My heroes are two stubborn, prideful men whose emotional journeys are equally satisfying, but I think I had more fun torturing Durren. Still, if I had to choose, I have to go with my ‘firstborn’ Prince Arn because he’s been with me so long.

As to the giveaway, it's one day only! On Thursday, Sept. 25, pop over to TRR's Fall Into Love Party and correctly answer the trivia question for THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE for a chance to win an e-copy. (Hint: Click here for the answer in the excerpt.) 

Celebrate!

I'm celebrating this week because BLOODSTONE has finally garnered a professional review, and it's 4.5 stars!

Check out what the LASR reviewer has to say: BLOODSTONE review

"A man whose face can kill, a woman bound to him by a promise, and both haunted by mysterious, intimate dreams of each other. Bloodstone’s story is rich and layered, nuanced and engrossing..."

I'm also celebrating because as of June, yours truly is a member of PAN, the Romance Writers of America's Published Author Network. That's thanks to strong sales of BLOODSTONE.

When I joined WisRWA, Wisconsin Romance Writers, and RWA years ago, I had a goal of eventually being published in novel-length romance by a royalty paying publisher. It took a lot of rejections to get there in 2009 with THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE.

That was the beginning of the e-book boom, and it was harder than I thought to garner professional reviews and even harder to get the sales required to move from PRO status to PAN status in RWA. I have to say I despaired of getting there. But I put my head down and worked on my second book.

And now, voila! Quite a summer, I have to say.

To close it out, check out The Romance Reviews'month-long Fall Into Love contest. My entry appears on Sept. 25th: Fall Into Love.