Mar 25 2015

New Novella Coming Soon!!

In and around working on “Someday In Dublin,” I’ve managed to bang out (heh) another of my $.99 novellas. I just need to get it polished up over the coming weekend, and I hope to have it published by April 1st!

Captured By The Hunter is the story of Drella, an intergalactic merchant’s daughter who is on the run from an arranged marriage. Her groom engages a Hunter to track her down – and this is no ordinary Hunter. Jodan is from a planet of Prims (you’ll remember them from my books Rain In The Moonlight and Changeling), a race of people who have special sensory skills – skills that make him a formidable foe…and a complete force of nature when it comes to women. Can he bring Drella back to face her wedding day? And can Drella get away from a man she’s overwhelmingly drawn to?

Look for Captured By The Hunter next week!

Mar 24 2015

That Great Fist-Punching Moment When Your Plot Takes A Twist You Didn’t Anticipate

I’m winding up my work on Someday In Dublin, and doing a few chapter reworks, when all of a sudden, one of the major twists in my plot suddenly branched off and became this whole other thing that added an entirely new layer of depth between these two people and oh, holy cow was it amazing when it hit me.

I actually jumped back and shouted “Yeah!” at the top of my lungs, startling a cat and nearly burning myself because I was cooking dinner at the time the inspiration hit.

You don’t always get a fist-pumping moment like that as a writer. Despite the romance of the written word, part of the time the story flows and a lot of the time you’re just slogging along, putting words down, ripping words out, rearranging words, and doing it all one-handed because your other hand is tearing your hair out.

But this time? This time it was right. It was perfect. Yes.

So that’s my big happy for this week. Now here’s yours: Today is your final day to get Eight Nights At Sea at a discount! The Kindle Countdown Deal ends tonight at midnight EDT (US) so get it while you can!!

Mar 20 2015

The Fine Line Of Classifying Your Book

I’m having a real problem with my books.

Here’s the deal. I write books that have to be classified as “erotic” because they contain descriptive sex. That’s the way publishing platforms work and I get that. You don’t want some twelve year old picking up a book with detailed sexual content (though they can find that in fanfic all over the net anytime they want…so go figure).

At the same time, the advent of indie publishing opened the doors for a whole lot of people who write hardcore erotica, and quite a bit of it is just porn scenes with a plot haphazardly slapped around it. There’s also a lot of “outside the mainstream m/f romance model” stuff involving same sex couples, group scenes, BDSM, fetishes….the list is endless. And when you mix in fantasy/paranormal, you don’t even have to be having sex with people anymore. Continue reading →

Mar 18 2015

Come And Get It! Eight Nights At Sea Is A Kindle Countdown Deal!

You read that right! Eight Nights At Sea is now a Kindle Countdown Deal and for the next three days you can own it for $.99!!

Do you like sexy, saucy, sarcastic pirates? Do you like sensual, mysterious women who give as good as they get? Do you like secrets that tear people apart, attraction and heart that pull people together, adventure and a touch of fantasy to add to the fun?

Then Eight Nights At Sea is your book! And you can have it for less than a buck!!

Mar 17 2015

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Enjoy A Free Read of “Under The Rainbow”

Caren is trying to get her life back together after a devastating diagnosis. When she meets the handsome and mysterious Aengus, she realizes she’s stumbled upon a world of shamrocks and magic in the middle of her harsh reality. He offers her one wish – and she doesn’t waste it on gold.

You can read “Under The Rainbow” for free at Smashwords, formatted for all e-reading devices or for PC, if you prefer. This was one of my favorite short-stories, it really is. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed having them in my head!

“A very well written mysterious short story (book). It was very easy to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment.”

“The ending was very beautiful…I kept rooting for them to be together. “

Mar 16 2015

Here’s Your Chance To Buy Eight Nights At Sea For A Song!

And once you read the book, you’ll know how appropriate that is! I’m offering Eight Nights At Sea on a Kindle Countdown Deal beginning at 8am EDT (US) on Wednesday, March 18th!

The book will blaze in at $.99, then hop up to $1.99 before moving back to its normal list price of $2.99. The promo will run through the 24th, so grab it while it’s hot!

Unfortunately, this also means that I have to unpublish the book from Smashwords for a while, as Amazon requires that I make this book a Kindle Select purchase, making it exclusive to Kindle for the next 90 days. I’ll be putting it back up to Smashwords once that deal expires.

So if you want the book for your Nook or other device (or on your PC), get it from Smashwords now – it’s coming down tomorrow.

Here’s a blurb, to give you a taste:

Zephyr Jamieson is a pirate, sailing the seas of a magical realm. He encounters a beauty named Rina, a woman with a body that sets him aflame and a secret that she cannot tell. Rina barters passage aboard Zephyr’s ship for herself and her secretive twin brother with the only thing the pirate captain appears to be interested in. Can eight nights at sea lead to more? Or will her secret tear them apart?

Set your countdown clocks – Eight Nights At Sea goes on sale soon!

Mar 11 2015

Hump Day! I Won’t Make A Dirty Joke – I’ll Just Tease Some Steamy Stuff

In Changeling, the third book of my Seeder Saga, Lizzie is abducted by Indar, a man from the Seeder Corps, and they spend a few weeks in close quarters on his ship, which causes all sorts of mayhem when they find themselves overwhelmingly attracted to each other. Continue reading →

Mar 10 2015

I Wrote All Night To Get To You (Is That All Right?)

I woke up at 1:30 am and I was wide awake. So I looked out the window at the stars and the overly bright moon and I knew I had to write.

Problem is, I had to write the story that’s three stories away from what I’m working on right now. I’m knee deep in Someday In Dublin, working on a non-fiction book under another pen name, and piecing together a novella due out April 1st.

This story shouldn’t be a priority. But the night was dark and magical, the stars were shining, and the fact is, this story is about a girl in the desert who sings stories to the stars. The mood was there and ideas were flickering and I would have been a fool not to take advantage of it.

By the same token, now that story is overtaking my brain because I allowed it to unfurl and now I need to clip its wings and get back to work on Someday In Dublin or it’ll never get done.

This writer thing….very frustrating sometimes.

Back to work.

Mar 5 2015

Teaser Thursday: How About A Little More Of “Changeling?”

Last week, I discussed parts one and two of my Seeder Saga a little more in-depth, and this week, I want to give you more insight into part three.

One of the pieces of feedback I hear most about books one and two is that each one reads like a stand-alone book, with the exception of their final chapters. I did this by design, though it can be argued that the setup for “Changeling” really takes hold in book two, “Rain In The Moonlight.”

And in “Changeling,” we get all of our questions answered from books one and two:

What happened to the planet that Miri is taken to? Why have the genetic issues occurred?

What was Parmet doing to the ecosystem on Rain’s planet?

Why was Indar so concerned with keeping Lunan’s family from being noticed by the Guild?

And best of all, we travel to Ajan’s home planet, and get to meet some hot-blooded Prims. When in Rome…or on a planet full of people who rely on their escalated primitive instincts…it can be interesting to do as the natives do. Or so Lizzie finds out… Continue reading →

Mar 4 2015

Doing Your Research – Sparingly

I’m three-quarters of the way through “Someday In Dublin,” and of course, I’m doing my research.

That’s the problem, though. Since I haven’t been to some of the places I’m writing about, I want to make sure I’m being as accurate as possible. I’m trolling the internet for tourist videos and traveler recommendations and personal travel blogs. I’m polling various internet friends who actually live in Ireland for their thoughts on certain things, and of course, they’ll be my beta readers when I’m done to make sure I’m not making a mess of any of this.

But there comes a time when you have to say to yourself: “Back away from the internet.” Especially when you’re researching someplace you’d love to go and see.

I can’t tell you how many internet rabbit holes I’ve fallen down, how many hours of writing time I’ve frittered away watching videos and checking out the websites of every national park and quaint little B&B I can find. I spent one entire evening reading pub menus from various watering holes in Dublin!

It’s all great fun, but it’s also not keeping me focused and not helping me toward my goal, which is finishing the damn book, after all. So I’ve learned a trick that helps me, and so far, it’s working.

When I’m writing the story, I keep certain things generic and then when I’m going back and revising, I’ll add in the specifics. I work in MS Word, so I use the highlight feature to mark the place in the manuscript, so I know I need to tweak it later. It looks something like this:

Later, I’ll go back and add in the name of a nearby village, and somewhere a little further down I’ll put in some details about something they saw there to flesh it out. By keeping it generic as I’m writing, I’m staying focused on what they’re doing with each other, how we’re moving the plot forward, what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. And most importantly, I’m not spending an hour on the internet when all I needed was the name of the damn village.

Writer tricks. They’re what’s for dinner.

And now, back to Michael and Amy, and Ireland. Can’t wait to share this one with you all!

Britt DeLaney

Romance Author

Tag Archives: Books