I’ve always believed that reading was an escape. As a child, I read during a lot of playground times because when the other kids were teasing me about wearing glasses, or being fat, or stuttering, the characters in books didn’t make fun of me. They invited me and took me on a journey.
As an adult, I think a lot of this is still true for me. Although, the reality I need an escape from is different. There’s a satisfaction in knowing that at the end of the book in my hands (well, my phone is in my hands!), the two main characters will be happy. Most of the people around them will be happy (unless they’re the focus of the next book, and then we know they’re about to go through some stuff to be happy), and hopefully, anyone who was mean or cruel to the happy couple will have some kind of reckoning.
Predictable? Sure, but isn’t that satisfying?
And being very honest with all of you, I need that.
I think a lot of us do. And that’s what’s awesome about romance. We may be living in places all over the world, but we all want that happiness and for a few hours we know exactly where we can find it!
Characters aren’t as cool as we are. They struggle. They don’t know they’re about to get their happy ending, and that means they can do stupid things, like fighting it. The same actions they think are noble, we’re grumbling about. When they think they’re being smart to protect their hearts from loss, we’re ready to throw something at them…or just throw our books/devices (Don’t do this!).
But Characters, man…they’re work!
And they can be frustrating!! Why won’t they just listen to us, talking to them? The nerve of these people!
When I was writing Shelter for Aylin, my Alpha reader (don’t worry, I have a beta and gamma, too) would get so frustrated with Stillman Rook, my hero… Why was he so difficult and frustrating? Why couldn’t he just let himself go after what he wanted?
I felt bad for her frustration but I also loved it when we came to that magical moment when he pulled his head out of his plot-driven backside and reached out to find happiness!
Contest
So tell me: What kind of Romance book do you like to escape into? Historical? Military? I want to know!
One randomly selected commenter will have their choice of an ebook from my Amazon Author page
Shelter for Aylin
Aylin Blaise, daughter of Station Seven’s Fire Chief, is loving her life. Well, most of it. An extended family of first responders and friends in college are expanding her world in leaps and bounds, but the one person she really wants to spend more time with, is keeping his distance.
Stillman Rook is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged firefighter and fulfilling the dream he’s had since he was a child. The one distraction in his life is Chief Blaise’s daughter. He could easily fall in love with her, but he’s a guy set on his path in life and she’s just discovering hers.
Rook may think he’s being honorable by keeping his distance, but it’s hard to protect the ones you love when you’re not close to them. When the world tries to level her with a crushing blow, will Rook be the Shelter for Aylin?
One thing 2020 has done is to force everyone to examine our living environments. Staying at home for long periods of time will do that. I suspect when we look back on 2020 we will see mass migrations of people. Maybe they should have waited until 2021 to hold a census.
My husband and I decided not to wait any longer on a dream we’ve had. So, we are beginning the next chapter in our lives and will be moving into the motorhome we just bought and we will be going full-time. I will soon be writing from the road as we travel. Our house is on the market as I type this, and the second showing is tomorrow. Things are moving fast! And I am excited!
Our new home is a 2010 Tiffin Allegro bus. It’s a forty-three-foot motorhome with a residential size fridge, a dishwasher, microwave/convection oven combo, an induction stovetop, a washer and dryer, bath and a half, desk with computer set up, and a couch with hide-a-bed. Oh, my goodness it is huge. There are three different places I can set up with my laptop. So, I will be in writers heaven. Especially if we can park the motorhome somewhere near a beach.
What about the books, you ask? Here is a sneak peek of the cover for Montana Delta Rescue which will be out in Dec. All these housing changes forced me to push the release back a bit. But once I am RVing full time I will have more time to write.
And I will give away one eBook to a lucky commenter, if you comment below.
Have you ever traveled in an RV? If you were to travel in an RV where would you like to go? What would you want to see? And if you love Halloween as much as I do, what is your favorite part about the holiday? I love seeing the children in their costumes. That is my favorite part. Happy Halloween and happy reading!
Last time, we talked about the hard work of writing in a multi-author continuity series—how we are building the town and how each author is creating their set of characters. I told you we had 320 characters. Well, as of this month we have 340. Remember, we have six authors all writing new stories and all growing the town—it can all progress quite quickly.
My first book started with Hunter Jakob Lawe, one of the grandsons of the town patriarch. He made friends that now surround his personal family nucleus. Cheryl St.John started with the Cavanaugh cousins. Each of the authors is gradually forming their own entourage of characters, but we all meet up in the town of Spencer at the bank, grocery store, coffee shop or saloon.
We call our town / character playbook the “Aspen Gold Series Bible”. This is a conglomeration of Word and Excel documents. There is an Excel sheet with every character that has been named, which author “owns” the character, and what book they appeared in. Because we are trying not to have ten John Doe’s, we have filters to separate the list alphabetically by characters’ first name, and another one sorting last name as a quick reminder not to repeat names. We also have a document listing all the children, their ages and when they were introduced or born. It has been over a year since we started and we are having babies!
There are also characters we all use. In an effort to not have six grocery stores or gas stations, we have a list of shared characters, their occupations and business names. We have policemen, firemen, a sheriff and deputies, bankers and construction companies. We also keep track of our resident bad guys and troublemakers.
Confused yet?
If you want the real low down on the town, the first six Ebooks in the series will be free at Amazon, October 12 – October 16. Come discover Spencer, where our characters find inspiration, passion, love, and for many, a new home.
Lonely Eyes
There is an art to pursuit.
Keira is running out of time. The handsome stranger with a dragon tattoo says he can keep her safe, but he doesn’t know the demons on her trail… Will her mysterious past lead her to escape, or drag her back to living hell?
Owen Strong has suffered tragedy, but he’s made a new family in Spencer, Colorado—one he will protect at all costs. When he finds determined Keira Hoa, she rouses more than just trouble. Looking into her lonely eyes, he sees that everyone’s in danger.
But she’s come to the right place. He’s the monster hunter.
Romantic Suspense Writer, Never Give Up-er,
First Wives Club-er, Lifelong Dream Achiever & Mom
Bernadette Jones has been making up stories since she learned to read on her daddy’s lap. She has imagined casts of characters everywhere she’s called home: Texas, Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, Massachusetts, and now New York.
Books and music filled her life as she, her dad and two brothers traveled the country. She would sit in the back seat of the car—her older brother always got to ride shotgun—listening to the current music on the radio, looking out the window and spinning a story based on a phrase she’d heard in the lyrics. As you can imagine, traveling the country, the music changed from state to state, as did the stories. To this day, she enjoys a wide variety of music and book genres.
After a career in corporate writing, she’s decided to settle down and put pen to paper doing what she loves. Living the dream in her NYC apartment with her canine companion, she’s bringing her stories and characters to life.
When hot actor Brem Lockwood enters her life, Madelyn has a choice—stay safe with an online fling or risk her heart for a chance at real love.
Divorcee Madelyn Stacilli has baggage deeper than the Grand Canyon, and her move to New Haven to start a new life is the perfect change she needs. When vicious gossip stunts her plans to open her own business, she can’t confide in anyone around her. But online, beneath the blanket of anonymity, she can let loose and find comfort with the mysterious Easton216. Their natural, open relationship is a breath of fresh air.
When British A-list actor Bremond Lockwood rents the house beside her to escape an intense media spotlight and malicious past, he charges headlong into her life. Madelyn grows torn between her steady, emotional online connection and a fiery affair with a Hollywood star. Brem’s intense passion ignites the embers of her sexuality from a long slumber, making her burn hotter than the sun.
Should she stay safe with her online love or risk her heart with the man in front of her? The road to recovery just got a whole lot more complicated.
Reader advisory: This book contains a scene of public sex and a scene of kidnapping. There is mention of gaslighting, alcoholism, emotional abuse, animal cruelty, and attempted murder.
Roxanne D. Howard is a U.S. Army veteran who has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English. She loves to read poetry, classical literature, and Stephen King. Also, she is an avid Star Wars fan, musical theater nut, and marine biology geek. Roxanne resides in the western U.S., and when she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her husband and children. Roxanne loves to hear from her readers, and encourages you to contact her via her website and social media.
The last Hot SEAL, Wedding Edition story is here—and it revolves around an “accidental” wedding! I know that, if you try one of our Hot SEAL stories, you’ll want to read them all. Check out Maryann Jordan’s Hot SEAL, Undercover Groom. Get your copy today, and then sit back and enjoy!
All Hot SEAL, Wedding Edition book links are below…
Hot SEAL, Undercover Groom
Bored. That’s Nolan “Ringer” Bell’s existence in a word.
A SEAL used to action, he’s sidelined for a ruptured appendix and on medical leave at his mom’s house. Desperate for any action, he agrees to help his PI sister. The case…suspected money laundering through a wedding chapel with ties to a casino.
Easy, right? Until he meets his partner.
Lynn Cox, a financial fraud analyst, is about to get the surprise of her life when whe agrees to help her best friend with a case.
She’s now partnered with the high school crush who left her behind when he joined the SEALs.
Their assignment…to have a pretend wedding to get a close-up view at what is going on in the chapel and spend their “honeymoon” at the Casino resort.
Ringer’s sweet but meddling mother is the secretary setting up the details, providing them with the paperwork for their “fake marriage license”.
Discovering they are married for real, Ringer and Lynn have to figure out how to get unmarried while still investigating the casino mob’s money laundering scheme. A night gambling and drinking lands Ringer and Lynn in honeymoon suite. Maybe mom knows best, after all.
The winners are…Candi Kandelas, Colleen C, and Amanda Zook!
*~*~*
Protect: keep safe from harm or injury; what real men do
I guess I have a hero complex because my favorite stories are the ones with strong heroes who have a soft spot and who also will do anything they can to protect women, especially those they love. Protecting Maddie kicked off a series for me in Susan Stoker’s Special Forces World, and brought to life Hawkeye St. John, one of my favorite heroes. Readers loved the story so much I was urged to keep it going. Well, of course! Writing about real heroes is one of the best things to do. And Maddie’s success brought readers to the other stories.
So here, for you, is a taste of all five books in the series:
Leave a comment for your choice of one of these books!
When Maddie Winslow talked a student out of his gun in her classroom, she never figured it would set off a chain of events that put her life in grave danger, and the lives of her parents.
Hiding in WitSec for thirty years, her parents thought they had beaten the odds—until the image of Maddie, an identical replica of her mother—hits the television airwaves and the people who have been seeking revenge all these years find her. Intent on learning where her mother is hiding, they break into her home and then try to kidnap her. Frightened, she goes to her friend, Zee, who once dated someone in Delta Force. She calls him to explain her friend’s situation, but he’s prepping for a mission and can’t leave the base.
Hunter “Hawkeye” St. John, a Delta Force team member, is on medical leave recuperating in Tampa and chafing for some action. When the he and Maddie meet, the sparks flying between them sizzle the air. But if Hawkeye wants to move forward with Maddie he first has to keep her safe and then eliminate the bad guys.
Protecting Cassie
Injured and discharged, he is lost…
Sam Alvarez is newly discharged from SEALs that had been his entire life. Without the Team he is lost, but a bad injury to his left arm ended his career. His rehab is slow and he resents everything. The tiny isolated cabin in Maine former SEAL John “Tex” Keenan found for him is just what he wants.
Frightened and in hiding…
Physical therapist Cassie Malone had a job she loved, great friends and a man in her life she thought was Prince Charming. Until by accident she discovered he’s one of Boston’s drug kingpins. Now she’s hiding out in tiny Castile and scared he’ll find her.
When Fate throws Cassie and Sam together, it’s a battle for him to let her help him relearn everything. His surliness is in high gear and she’s always looking over her shoulder. But neither of them counted on or expected the hot, hot attraction blazing between them.
When drug smugglers show up and put everyone in danger, including Cassie, it’s up to Sam to use his skills to take them down and save the woman he’s come to love. But can he do it before it’s too late?
Protecting Amy
She thought her past was firmly behind her…
Amy Ressler was a vivacious, outgoing person, looking forward to her first job after graduating college. Until the night her stepbrother slaughtered her entire family and thought she was dead, too. For ten years she’d been living under an assumed name in a house in Tampa with security guards and a security system. Her agoraphobia keeps her a prisoner in the house where she designs sought after video games.
Quinn Molloy couldn’t seem to find a place for himself when he left the SEALS…
He has been part of the teams for eighteen years and suddenly an injury left him with no place to go, except to visit his friends Melody and Tex Keenan. Where they introduce him online to KitCat, Amy in her online disguise, a terrified woman who needs a bodyguard.
The killer is loose…
When Matthew Baker escapes from jail the hunt is on, led by the US Marshals. But with Amy helpless in her self-imposed prison, Quinn accepts the job as her personal bodyguard, and they discover that what starts online can explode n the bedroom. As long as he can keep her alive.
Protecting Arizona
She wasn’t a no-name sex kind of woman but stress had gotten the better of her…
She’d never see him again so she could indulge every need and desire she had with this hot, sexy, intense, troubled man. Now she has to put it out of her mind as the DEA task force she’s on prepares to take down dangerous drug kingpin Luca Vasquez, coincidentally her brother-in-law. When her sister is murdered and her niece disappears, se leaves he task force to find her.
He couldn’t get the memories of the woman out of his mind…
Being a SEAL was the only thing Clint “Razor” DaCosta had known for twenty years until a disastrous mission ended his career. Now dreams of the raw sex with the passionate redhead are the only things that keep the nightmares of that mission at bay. He’s still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life when a phone call from a friend brings him to a shocking meeting.
Passion…danger…murder…a lethal combination
No one is more shocked than Razor and Arizona when he answers her call for help. The heat is still there and it’s hard to put aside the memories of their scorching sex. But first, they must find her niece and avenge her sister’s murder. And hope they both don’t get killed in the takedown.
And the newest…
Protecting Terra
When Terra Oenning and Griffin Dunne were paired in a Department of Homeland Security Op, neither of them expected the heat that exploded between them like the cabin they were surveilling. Personal relationships have no place in their lives. Ever. Period. That’s it. Except the night the cabin blows up so does their restraint, the sex between them so hot it sets fire to the sheets.
When the trail they are following takes them to the frozen north of Maine, even that isn’t enough to cool them down, but like experienced DHS agents, they never take their eyes off their assignment. Terrorists, computer hackers and the Croatian Mafia are combining to destroy the United States and Terra and must focus on destroying them. No problem. Despite the addictive, off-the-charts sex, they are trained agents who do their job, surveilling key players and helping to set up the takedown.
But when it goes awry and Terra is caught in the crosshairs, it will be up to Griffin to rescue her, a wake-up call for both of them that maybe, just maybe, what they have between them is real.
And being very honest with all of you, I need that.
