And Here It Is….The Big Reveal – Check Out The Final Cover (And Another Teaser)!! #amwritingromance

Sea landscape with the eye of Ireland in Howth, Ireland.

And this, folks, is why you pay a professional designer. I can knock out an okay-looking cover, but this….this is everything I wanted it to be.

If any of you are from Dublin, you know well that’s Howth in the foreground – and Howth features prominently in this tale.

This cover is pure romance, and once again, Colleen at Mystique Book Designs has knocked it out of the park. I can’t wait to put it all together and put it out there! In the meantime…here’s another little taste of Amy and Michael’s story:

Continue reading

Coming To Print – Someday In Dublin!

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Take a good look at the cover, because it’s only going to be teasing you for a little while longer. I’ve decided to take Someday In Dublin to print!

And that means I really, really need a good, professional-grade cover. My mock up might be fine for an e-book, but if I’m going to be asking people to pay print-on-demand prices, they deserve the best I can make it, from the inside out.

Colleen at Mystique Book Designs is hard at work on my cover (she did the covers of my Seeder Saga novels as well as the amazing cover for my YA book) and it’s looking terrific! Can’t wait to show you the finished design when it’s ready!

As of right now, I’m planning to launch the book within the next two to three weeks — I was hoping for an April launch originally, but I just landed a paying writing gig that’s slowing me down a bit – and I’ve gotten some beta-reader feedback that I’m digesting as well.

And of course, along with the print-on-demand package, the book will also be offered as an e-book through both Smashwords and Amazon.

I appreciate all your patience – I promise, it’ll be worth the wait!!

One American Girl, One Irish Guy, One Wild Irish Weekend – Someday In Dublin!

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Amy travels to Dublin on a whim, desperate to escape her life and reconnect with her carefree, younger days. She assembles a list – an Irish ‘bucket list’ of sorts – for her whirlwind weekend, planning every single detail…

Except for Michael. She never saw him coming.

When they connect at a crowded bar, sparks fly and Amy’s plans become twice the fun, until a secret changes everything between them, altering the course of two lives.

Can Amy find her spirit and rekindle her passion? Can Michael face his inner demons and find the absolution he needs? And can an unseen force bring them together to find what they need in each other?

Find out….Someday In Dublin!

It’s Important To Listen To Your Characters – They Know What They’re Talking About

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Somewhere near the 2/3 done mark of Someday In Dublin, I hit writer’s block. I hit it bad. I had to figure out a way to reconnect these two after having blown them apart and I knew how the story had to end up (and another big reveal to resolve it) but the pathway to getting there…not so clear.

So I put it down for a bit, and I picked it up again. I reread and I wrote a bunch of stuff that took the story off track so I cut it and put it in my slush file and I tore my hair out and ground my teeth and wrote some more.

And then I went back and reread it again.

Now this is where my theatre training saves the day. I was all alone for the weekend because my kids were off with their Dad, so I printed up the damn manuscript and I started acting it out. Walking it through. Talking it through.

Back in the day, back before I even started trodding the boards, I actually won awards for playwriting. Dialogue has always been my strong suite, and when all else fails, I talk that scene through. I have that argument, or act out that love scene. I turn dramatically or stare longingly out a window or tenderly caress my cat’s face.

Don’t judge.

It works like a charm. Once I start channeling the characters and let them do the talking, the story gets legs again and off we go. And so it went with Someday In Dublin. And so Michael and Amy found a way.

You’re going to love this one. You’re just going to love it.

Someday In Dublin will be breaking for eBook soon, and in print shortly after that. I’ll keep you posted!

My Next Book Is Breaking Soon – Here’s Another Taste!

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Someday In Dublin is nearly ready!

I’m re-reading and reworking, and have a cadre of beta-readers going through it for me, as well. Once all the revisions and edits from that process are done, Someday In Dublin will be ready to roll.

Unlike my previous works, I’m also going to be using CreateSpace to offer the book via Print on Demand, just because I honestly love the idea of holding this one in my hands. It’s that good of a story.

I’m hoping you’ll think so, too. And here’s my little snippet for today to give you another peek into Michael and Amy. This is the second half of their “meeting” scene. Enjoy! Continue reading

So Here’s What I’m Working On Next…The Elemental Series

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I’m in final edits for Someday In Dublin, which means the greater majority of that book is in the can. Whew! And now I can really begin hammering out the next project – The Elemental Destiny Series.

This is going to be a four part work – four individual full-length novels with protagonists based on their affinity for one of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. They won’t be releasing in that order – it’s more like Air, Water, Earth and Fire, but you get the gist of it.

Each of these characters lives partly in the supernatural world, though they are very firmly rooted in present-day earth. I’ve been kicking this one around for a good, long while, outlining and reworking the outline and fleshing it out.

One of my biggest complaints about The Seeder Saga (and I can’t help but think it was an issue for the readers) is that Books 1 & 2 are essentially stand-alone books, up until their final chapters. That’s mainly because when I wrote the first one, I hadn’t really planned for a trilogy, and then I was halfway into book two and could only hint at the plot of book three by introducing you to its hero in a passing manner.

Everything comes together in book three, with a lot of great callbacks and visits to our friends in books one and two, but they don’t really have the cohesive feel I’d like out of a series.

This one will have that, and an intricately woven plot that centers around a series of mysteries that reveal themselves through the course of the series, culminating in life-or-death decisions that will affect the entire human race.

This one is going to take a while to churn out, but it’ll be worth it, I promise. In the meantime, you’ll have Somewhere In Dublin, and I’ll toss a few more novellas your way to keep your blood pumping, I promise.

Off to work I go!

And Here It Is – Your First Teaser From “Someday In Dublin”

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This is a sexy, steamy romance novel. You know how I love my steam, but this one…this one is mostly about the romance.

I mean, this is pure, straight-on romance. This is Mr. Darcy, touching your hand in a crowded ballroom. This is John Cusack standing outside your window with a boom box. This is Khal Drogo looking you in the eyes as you sit astride him.

You get what I mean. This story is a love story, set in the present day, with no gorgeous aliens or fantastical realms, like I usually like to escape to. This time, I escaped to Ireland, and oh, what a journey we go on with this one.

So here, for your reading pleasure, is a bit of Michael and Amy’s introduction. Enjoy! Continue reading

Why Novellas When I’m Already Writing Novels? #amwritingfantasy

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As I’ve mentioned before, my new novella, “Captured By The Hunter” will be out tomorrow! I have to tell you that I loved the hell out of this one. Jodan was tremendous fun to write, and the dynamic between these two…whoo baby. When you add in Sci-Fi or Fantasy, sex can go all kinds of fun places.

This is one of my longer novellas, and I briefly toyed with the idea of making it a full-on novel, but in the end, it just wasn’t going to happen. I have (and I’m not kidding) NINE books on horizon. I’m finishing up Somewhere In Dublin, then I’ve got a four part fantasy romance series waiting in the wings. I’m also working on a non-fiction book, parts two and three of a YA series and another YA novel under my other pen name. Adding yet another novel onto the pile (especially when I really, really wanted to write this story NOW) just wasn’t going to fly.

So you get a more condensed (and intense) version, and new readers get a glimpse of where I go when I get to build the universe my characters live in.

I call that a win/win.

So look for the new novella, available tomorrow on Amazon for Kindle and Smashwords for all e-reading devices and PC!