by Sarah | Aug 23, 2014 | Books, Masked Hearts, WeWriWa, Writing
Welcome back to the Weekend Writing Warriors!
I’m back with my travelling wild west show story, Masked Hearts.
The confrontation with the Cheyenne continues. In her current state, Minnie finds it easy to hold onto her anger. But perhaps John & Carl are trying to help…:
“You can’t even show friendship to your own kind, but you look at a white man like that? I thought you hated white men,” Carl folded his arms across his chest.
“I do,” She did, but Roy had just proved he wasn’t white–not fully; not that she could reveal his secret to them.
“Rawlins offered him your contract for a few games. Are you trying to make it so he’ll do that?” John picked apple pieces off her head, tossing it aside. “Because it would be no better with him, you know that.”
“I don’t want that,” Minnie didn’t look away from Carl’s glare.
*Creative editing used this week to fit in the 8.
*~*
If you want more of these wonderfully damaged pair…pick up a copy!
| Amazon | SCP | BN | ARe |
Minnie Woodward lives a lie. After barely surviving the Bear River Massacre she’s lived in the white world of her guardian Mister Rawlins, her life debt keeping her tied there. The last thing she needs is Roy’s attempts to gain her favor. Her fate’s sealed. She’s never believed in hope, and not even Roy can make her start.
Roy Ornum saves Minnie every night in the traveling Wild West show. The job he took to break his gambling habit brought him a new addiction – her. He knows she doesn’t want to be rescued, but maybe he does. She’s the key to a past he lost, one he wants to find again.
As the two grow closer old wounds are reopened and their burgeoning trust is shattered. When lives hang in the balance of their choices they’ll need to work together. Otherwise everything will be lost before hope can be found.
*~*
Head back on over to the Weekend Writing Warriors to read many more wonderful offerings!
by Sarah | Aug 20, 2014 | Book Spotlight, Excerpt, Guest Authors, Writing
To what lengths will a man go for the woman he loves?
Reed Dartmouth will learn the answer to those questions time and time again throughout his relationship with Jade Montgomery.
When he first meets her as a young, gentle boy the heartache from losing his mother only a year before is still fresh and painful. Jade is different from anyone else he’s ever met; tough, sassy, and even a bit cruel. But she’s also the same as he is: she knows what it’s like to lose a parent.
Their friendship begins and a bond like no other is formed. Time passes and Reed learns that not only are Jade’s parents dead, they were murdered and she’s made an oath to one day bring them justice. No matter the price.
As they grow older their love evolves but for Jade, old habits die hard and she can’t stop hurting those she loves the most. Even in the midst of searching for her parents’ killers, passion ignites and jealousy burns as Jade tests Reed’s devotion for her. Will she push him too far?
*~*
Reed chuckled in unison with Justine as she retold her version of their many shared Driver’s Ed mishaps. “I remember it a little differently than that, but then again, that was nearly ten years ago. I guess my version could be a little sketchy.”
Her laughter faded and her eyes crinkled at the corners as her expression grew whimsical. “Wow, ten years. Has it really been that long?”
“About that, yeah, but I’m glad you gave me a ring while you were in town so that we could meet up like this. It’s been nice.”
Her finger trailed delicately around the rim of her beer. “Of course I did. I’ve always wondered what you’ve been up to all these years. We never really talked again after…that night.”
He stiffened.
Avoiding eye contact, she stared at her drink as if it had all the answers. “Remember that Reed?”
“Yep.” His answer was brief as nostalgic memories resurfaced. Those years had been tucked away, purposefully.
Justine’s body language changed and he knew she was likely contemplating whether to push the conversation or just let it go. Knowing females, and boy did he, as he was raised by many of them, he had no doubt that she’d just have to push it.
“All those years I kept wondering what she had that I didn’t. Then one day I realized that I’d go crazy trying to answer that question, so I chose to just let it go. But right now, sitting here with you, I realize that I still want to know the answer.” Finally, she raised her gaze to meet his.
He could see by the way her jaw set and her fingers trembled, that it took everything she had. He hated to be put in this position, to dredge up old ghosts from the past. He’d do it just to settle the score and hopefully it would ease her pain.
He sighed. “It wasn’t that you lacked anything at all Justine. You were… you are, beautiful, elegant, funny, kind, and quite simply a good person. There should never be a comparison drawn between you and Jade. It just isn’t fair. She came into my life before you and along the way, she asked me to make a promise to her. I kept that promise, even to my own detriment. I’m sorry that you got caught in the middle of that. I never meant to hurt you. You always did mean a lot to me.”
A sad smile haunted her features and it made him sick to his stomach to know she wasn’t sad for herself. She was sad for him.
She reached out and put a gentle hand over his. “Please tell me, Reed, that after all this time you aren’t still keeping that promise to her. She’s been gone for as long as I have. Promises can be a brutal sentence to carry out.”
He snickered. “You have no idea.” He swigged the last of his beer, placed a light kiss on her cheek, and said goodnight. If there was one thing Reed knew in the depths of his soul, it was what it meant to make a promise.
*~*
About the author:
Michelle Bellon lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their four children. She drinks ungodly amounts of coffee and has an addiction to chapstick.
She works at a surgery center as a registered nurse and in her spare time writes novels. She writes in the genres of romance suspense, young adult, women’s fiction, and literary fiction. She has won three literary awards.
***********************************************
Check out Michelle’s Other Books
by Sarah | Aug 19, 2014 | Book Spotlight, Books, Giveaway, Guest Authors, Reviews, Writing
Four & A Half Stars
First Impression has the rare distinction of impressing me. The blurb had me really curious, and the cover is fabulous…but I’ve been let down before and caught in the “typical” YA stream of consciousness that forms a book.
This one did have a little romance. It had some mystery. It had ghosts (done well). It had a frickin’ owl, people. An OWL. Not just any owl, an AWESOME owl.
Chira was totally relatable for me. She’s picked on, but has one really good friend. People don’t hate her, but she has a stigma around her because of an early rumor (the root of which is exposed during the book).
We meet Ben early on and he’s not-surprisingly a mystery. The one thing Chira notices about him is that he wears colored contacts – to make his eyes brown. Her curiosity over that finds room.
Of course, Ben is smokin’. There’s not the instant “OMG, I must have him and all else dies.” Chira is attracted, and makes some attempts at flirting, but her life goes on, and her BFF drags her along for the ride on this mission to check out the old abandoned, and haunted, schoolhouse is when things start to take a turn.
The mystery kicks off, and the revelations start to fly. I can’t go into it too much without divulging some serious spoilers into the story. All I’ll say is Pauline handles the lore, the mystery, and the high-paced action really well. Once I got to 33% I couldn’t stop and ended up staying up until about 3AM in order to finish. I couldn’t put it down until I knew what was going on.
Did I guess? I made lots of guesses, but the author threw in plenty of surprises for me. What’s better is she set off a surprise twist on the relationship front that leaves me wondering what will happen in book 2. One mystery is resolved, but I have so many more questions and hope there’s plans for more ASAP.
And anytime a book leaves me wanting more, it’s a win. I want more of Chira and Ben, and the rest of the (surviving) characters!
*~*
Join us July 21 – August 29 as we celebrate Pauline Creeden’s books
Part Steampunk, part Fantasy, all Romance…
When a crippled young lord rescues a girl falling from a tree, it reveals a secret about himself and his mother’s side of the family that could put him at the center of a war with beings he thought only existed in fairy tales. Tristan Gareth Smyth lived his entire life stuck at home at Waverly Park and left behind while his Grandfather makes trips to London, all because of his blasted wheelchair. Then an American heiress falls in his lap, literally, and he must find a way to keep her at a distance to protect not only his secret, but everyone around him from an assassin sent to kill him.
Darkness can be overcome…
Terminally ill Lynette Lamb is forced to reunite her wayward son and grandson. Her options are as limited as her strength and mobility. Through a fateful series of events, the rejoined pair will leave Earth to become part of a colony orbiting a new planet. Sam Austin and his wife mourn the loss of their only child and decide to make a fresh start at the space station. The same ship holds the one who will fulfill the dark planet’s prophecy, but a demonic force boards to stop the vessel. The demon’s obedient but unwilling servant is sent on a suicide mission to keep the ship from reaching its destination.
Chira Kelly thought she didn’t need anyone…until she met Ben.
Because of one ugly rumor, Chira lives as an outcast at her school. Which is fine with her, because she works better alone. Always has, always will. And at least she has her one and only true friend, Tasha. When Tasha insists that they join a group to visit a possibly haunted abandoned old schoolhouse, she’s wary, but joins her friend. Because of that decision, their lives are in jeopardy as a malevolent spirit targets the group. Tragedies and accidents pick them off one by one, and Chira finds herself drawn to the one person who can see the truth. But can he protect her?
*A Young Adult Paranormal Romance – Urban Fantasy with a blend of Mystery*
Left Behind for the Hunger Games generation
In a heart-racing thriller described as Falling Skies meet The Walking Dead, Jennie struggles to find a safe place for what’s left of her family. But it seems as though there is no place sacred, no place secure. First the aliens attacked the sun, making it dimmer, weaker, and half what it used to be. Then they attacked the water supply, killing one-third of Earth’s population with a bitter contaminate. And when they unleash a new terror on humankind, the victims will wish for death, but will not find it…
When the world shatters to pieces around her, will Jennie find the strength she needs to keep going?
Pauline Creeden
Pauline Creeden is a horse trainer from Virginia, but writing is her therapy. In her fiction, she creates worlds that are both familiar and strange, often pulling the veil between dimensions. She becomes the main character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she will get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.
Follow Pauline Creeden:
Website | Facebook | Twitter
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by Sarah | Aug 17, 2014 | Guest Authors, Guest Post, Writing
First, I want to thank Sarah’s StoryLines for inviting me here today and for helping to introduce my new release. More about that later. Right now I want to talk about…
Things to Include on a Character List…
I have to admit I’d never used a character list until my amazing agent, Dawn Dowdle with Blue Ridge Literary Agency, required one for each manuscript. Now, I don’t know how I’d survive without one!
Character lists are designed to help you remember what you’ve said and done in the first half of your book, or the first three books in a series, so that your characters continue to have the same color eyes, hair, and not age ten years in six months. Here are a few things I like to keep track of on mine:
- The driver’s license info—name (include full name and nickname if applicable), age, height, weight (maybe not in so many words), hair color, eye color, wears glasses or contacts
- Character roles in the story—is she Uncle Alvin’s twin brother’s stepsister? Is he the CEO of Floyd’s Storage Inc.? Or was it CFO? How long have they been there? And if you mentioned what they were doing before they got their current job, trust me, you’ll want to note it on your character list.
- Transportation—what kind of car does your character drive? Note the year, the color, and any other information you learn about it and mention the first time it appears…like what size engine it has or how many people it seats. That could be helpful later on when you try to transport six people in a car that only holds two.
- Dress—does your character wear Armani suits and ties or jeans and sexy, tight T-shirts? Cowboy boots? If your hero wears a baseball cap, it probably has a sports team emblem. What’s his team? Does your heroine prefer two inch heels? Or four inch? What colors do they look best in? Everyone dresses a little different.
- Guns—my genre is romantic suspense, so my characters carry guns. Each character has a preference, and the gun I put in his hand in the first book of the series better carry through to the last. On a related issue, that gunshot wound my character suffered in the last book…it needs to be on the same arm, leg, or shoulder in the next book. That’s one I didn’t write down, and now I have to go back and search for the answer.
The character list has saved my bacon, and my time, over and over again. I’m always coming up with new things to add to the list. Many times I learn things the hard way!
What about you? What’s on your character list?
*~*
| Amazon | BN | Kobo | iTunes |
Blurb
Assassin Alex Morgan will do anything to save an innocent life – especially if it means rescuing a child from a hell like the one she endured.
But going undercover as husband and wife, with none other than the disarmingly sexy Detective Nate Sanders, may be a little more togetherness than she can handle. She’s used to working alone, and no man is going to change that – not even a man who makes her heart pound and her defenses crumble with just a touch
Nate has dodged more than a few bullets over the years, but fighting his attraction for Alex may be the bullet that does him in. Still, Nate’s determined to help her find the missing kid. There’s no doubt in his mind that they’re walking straight into danger, but Nate’s willing to face anything if it means protecting Alex. She might have been on her own once, but Nate has one more mission: to stay by her side – forever.
Link to Follow Tour: http://www.tastybooktours.com/2014/07/whatever-it-takes-trust-no-one-4-by.html
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21150710-whatever-it-takes
*~*
Author Info
DIXIE LEE BROWN lives and writes in Central Oregon, inspired by what she believes is the most gorgeous scenery anywhere. She resides with two dogs and a cat, who make sure she never takes herself too seriously. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, movies, and trips to the beach.
Author Links
Website:http://www.dixiebrown.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dixie-Lee-Brown/311618418919108
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DixieLeeBrown
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6583364.Dixie_Lee_Brown
Rafflecopter Giveaway (Print copy of another installment in Dixie Lee Brown’s Trust No One series, IF YOU ONLY KNEW—where you get to meet Alex and Nate for the first time!)
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by Sarah | Aug 16, 2014 | Books, Masked Hearts, WeWriWa, Writing
Welcome back to the Weekend Writing Warriors!
I’m back with my travelling wild west show story, Masked Hearts.
The apple has been shot from her head, and Minnie storms back to the wagons to clean up, embarrassed and properly chastised. Before she can reach the safety of her small cabin in the show wagon, the two Cheyenne, John and Carl, confront her.
John speaks first:
“Are you crazy?”
All she wanted to do was collapse, but she never backed down from a fight–most especially a fight with one of the Cheyenne, “No.”
“What makes you think you’re so special?” Carl snarled and yanked her back down the steps. “Why would you show any affection for a white man? Much less where all could see—especially Rawlins?”
“It wasn’t affection,” she hissed. It hadn’t been, had it?
*Creative editing used this week to fit in the 8.
*~*
If you want more of these wonderfully damaged pair…pick up a copy!
| Amazon | SCP | BN | ARe |
Minnie Woodward lives a lie. After barely surviving the Bear River Massacre she’s lived in the white world of her guardian Mister Rawlins, her life debt keeping her tied there. The last thing she needs is Roy’s attempts to gain her favor. Her fate’s sealed. She’s never believed in hope, and not even Roy can make her start.
Roy Ornum saves Minnie every night in the traveling Wild West show. The job he took to break his gambling habit brought him a new addiction – her. He knows she doesn’t want to be rescued, but maybe he does. She’s the key to a past he lost, one he wants to find again.
As the two grow closer old wounds are reopened and their burgeoning trust is shattered. When lives hang in the balance of their choices they’ll need to work together. Otherwise everything will be lost before hope can be found.
*~*
Head back on over to the Weekend Writing Warriors to read many more wonderful offerings!
