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Category Archives: Guest Blogging
10 Things about Susan Hogan…and Cozy Heroines
I’m happy to welcome multi-published author Judy Alter to the Power of 10 series. Today, Judy shares ten interesting facts about Susan Hogan, the protagonist of her latest release, Pigface and the Perfect Dog.
Here’s Judy!
Susan Hogan is the protagonist of my Oak Grove Mystery series. I meant her to be a bit different than the stereotypical cozy heroine. To some extent, I succeeded, because my main beta reader confessed he didn’t like her as well as the women in my other series, and one reviewer called her “prickly.”
With this list, I give readers a chance to judge for themselves, but I hope the list will make you want to read about Susan’s crime-solving adventures.
–Susan Hogan, associate professor of English at the fictional Oak Grove University, is thirty-five, single, and never married; she has, in fact, a bit of a fear of commitment that sometimes gets in the way of her relationship with Jake Phillips, chief of campus security.
–Susan Hogan’s romance with Jake pairis, a cop (pardon, law enforcement officer) and falls into the cozy cliché trap of heroine and police officer but works well for plot purposes.
–Susan is an energetic, stimulating classroom teacher; her field is American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
–Raised by a maiden aunt in Wichita Falls, Texas Susan would like to feel she’s a free spirit, but she clings to many of Aunt Jenny’s preachings about life, morals, and manners.
—-She can cut up a salad and set a proper table, but don’t ask Susan to cook. Jake is a master at the grill, and Aunt Jenny cooks everything from pots of soup to King Ranch chicken, but Susan can’t figure out Hollandaise sauce.
–Susan wears her hair in a spikey cut and runs her hands through it all the time. She can’t be bothered with hair-styling and prefers jeans or, at the least, slacks, hasn’t worn a skirt in years.
–Susan is not status conscious. She drives a battered, old Honda but would really love to go back and forth to campus on Jake’s moped. Since she once wrecked it, Jake fears for the safety of both Susan and his moped and has forbidden her to ride it.
–Susan was at odds with the former chair of the English department, and she finds university rules and regulations cumbersome and restrictive. Professors whose field is Renaissance literature seem to irritate her.
–Susan is cautious about warming up to people—the city police lieutenant, the sheriff—and she can get crosswise, as she does with Marge the waitress who thinks she’s guilty of murder, but she’s fiercely loyal to those she loves—Jake, Aunt Jenny and her paramour Judge John Jackson, her fellow teacher Ellen Peck, and newcomer to the series, Gus Conroy.
–Susan Hogan is, at best a free spirit, representing contemporary feminist thinking in moderation and without the extremes, but tempering her freedom with a bit of the traditional role of women.
In short, Susan Hogan is someone I’d like to meet and hang out with.
Blurb
Susan Hogan thinks she’s about to meet her maker when she confronts a rifle-carrying man, who looks like a pig, in a grocery store. Jake investigates the body of a young college student, shot in the back and found in an empty pasture. Aunt Jenny showers love on the new puppy a young man from the grocery gave her but she has to get rid of that heavy collar.
Susan is associate professor of English at Oak Grove (Texas) University; her partner, Jake, is Chief of Campus Security. Aunt Jenny, the maiden lady who raised Jenny, came to Oak Grove to help Susan, who was accused of murdering a coed in The Perfect Coed, first book in the series How much help Jenny was is debatable, but she made a fast friend in Judge John Jackson and stayed in Oak Grove.
Trouble in Oak Grove begins with the open-carry protestors in the store and leads to a shooting, breaking and entering, threats and an attempted kidnapping, a clandestine trip to the woods late at night. Will Susan Hogan land in trouble…or the hospital…again? Will Susan and Jake survive this as a couple? Susan is still prickly but she learns some lessons about life, love, and herself in this second Oak Grove Mystery.
Bio
Judy Alter is the author of seven books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, two books in the Blue Plate Café Mysteries; and two in the Oak Grove Mysteries. Pigface and the Perfect Dog follows The Perfect Coed in this series of mysteries set on a university campus. Judy is no stranger to college campuses. She attended the University of Chicago, Truman State University in Missouri, and Texas Christian University. For twenty years, she was director of TCU Press, the book publishing program of the university. The author of many books for both children and adults, primarily on women of the American West, she retired in 2010 and turned her attention to writing contemporary cozy mysteries.
The single parent of four and the grandmother of seven, she lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her perfect dog, Sophie.
Where to find Judy Alter…
Adulting Writer Awards
I’m happy to welcome Soul Mate Author Elle Hill. Today, Elle shares some of her inspirational and motivational designs.
Here’s Elle!
About a week ago, I received some grump-inducing news. As is my recent habit, come afternoon, I plunked down before my desktop and slapped my fingers on the keyboard. Writing time! That day, though, I glared accusingly at my computer, which, just hours ago, had delivered some pretty obnoxious information.
But slowly, peck by peck, all the while sighing and muttering angrily, I penned a little over 1000 words. After limping across the finish line, I’ll admit I felt pretty smug. I hated the world that day, and still I managed to write something.
I deserved a medal, or at least a merit badge. An author merit badge.
You know those adulting awards that show up from time to time on social media? I propose we authors have our own adulting award but for, you know, literary stuff. Given this, I have designed some awards. Please feel free to print out, distribute, or tattoo as needed.
Where to find Elle Hill…
Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon
Spotlight on Anna Dowdall
I’m happy to welcome Wild Rose Press author Anna Dowdall. Today, Anna shares her writing journey and debut novel, After the Winter.
Here’s Anna!
I love twentieth century romantic suspense, domestic suspense, Gothic suspense. There’s nothing more relevant today than these stories, currently enjoying a renaissance and often very well written—think Charlotte Armstrong, Patricia Wentworth—about women in danger and what they do about it. I wondered if I could write something like that. But spiked with a modern ending, otherwise how to bring in the unexpected every reader wants. And so I did. After the Winter is that book, a tribute to a lot of writers who went before me, and the first of a romantic suspense/mystery series called The Ashley Smeeton Files.
I’ve always loved to read and write. I had a working class upbringing, maybe they were forms of escape. When I was nine or ten I spent the summer writing a melodrama about Gwendolyn, Marigold and Ali, and their adventures in and out of a gated city redolent of the mysterious East. The paper I wrote on was some by-product of paper milling, maybe the ends of rolls, who knows. I don’t know where I got my flowery language—Gwendolyn had eyes like twin sapphire pools for example. Even then I was drawn to romantic suspense it seems! A few years passed, I did lots of things. I was a nurse’s aide, journalist, perpetual grad student, bureaucrat, translator, graphic artist and mother, I flew a small plane, I lived in the far North. It was all cool. But I still wanted to write.
First I tried YA fiction. (Sometimes I think I must be a glutton for punishment.) Book one was a listed semi-finalist for the American Katherine Paterson YA prize, and book two was same for an Unhanged Arthur Ellis—the unpublished category in Canada’s annual mystery prize. No takers though, among publishers or agents. And I still don’t have an agent.
I’ve learned a lot from my professional life. Writing is, after all, a job. Every published writer I’ve ever spoken to has routinized their work. When in the active writing phase I try to sit at my desk every day at around 9. I write as many days a week as I can for a few hours. I aim for a minimum of 1000 words a day.
I spend about four months planning a book. Planning consists of writing notes that eventually take a definite shape, with a list of characters, an ever-expanding synopsis and a timeline. I’m always impressed when people use special software for this, but I don’t. I have a notebook and pen always handy during the writing phase and write every random thought down. I also saturate myself during the planning phase in anything I think will be helpful for the story. My third book will have scenes on a train and I got into several novels involving train journeys. Even Zola’s La Bête humaine, cripes, which (spoiler alert) is all about people thinking about killing other people on and off trains, and then actually killing them—also on and off trains. I spend about six weeks revising, although revision is getting easier now as I write more and make fewer booboos.
The main thing is, though, I read a lot, 200 books a year I’m sure, maybe more.
I seek inspiration from books, my thoughts and feelings, paintings if you can believe it, real life. Someone once asked me if anyone ever recognized themselves in my work. I sincerely hope so. Of course, the resemblance would be 100% accidental! Book 2, The Au Pair, will be out in a few months and my denials will be twice as vehement.
Blurb
Rudderless after betrayal by her former fiancé, Montreal heiress Sally Ryder discovers her deceased mother had a secret life and she has a half-sister. Helena has written to Sally, inviting her to Midwinter, an isolated estate in Quebec. But before they can meet, Helena and her husband die under disturbing circumstances.
Sally decides to visit nearby Waverley for a few days nevertheless, to learn what she can about the sister she never knew. Her first shock is to find that her brother-in-law left everything, including Midwinter, to his beautiful secretary Janine. During a storm, Sally is unexpectedly snowed in with Janine and an assortment of Midwinter guests. It isn’t long before Sally becomes entangled with a handsome doctor from Boston in an effort to uncover the truth about her sister’s mysterious life, and death.
Meanwhile, the bodies pile up.
Buy Links
Amazon (Canada) | Amazon (US) | Barnes & Noble | The Wild Rose Press
Where to find Anna…
Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook
In Praise of Handwriting
For decades, I eschewed cursive handwriting in favor of keyboarding and printing. That’s right—printing. After several students had complained about my illegible board work, I switched to printing on the blackboard and inputted almost everything else onto digital devices. I did sign report cards, checks, and other legal documents, taking extra care with my penmanship.
Since retiring, I’ve rediscovered the benefits of expressing my ideas the old-fashioned way. I have Julia Cameron to thank for that epiphany. A fan of Julia’s books, among them The Artist’s Way and The Prosperous Heart, I found myself incorporating Morning Pages into my daily regimen. At first skeptical, it didn’t take me long to realize the wisdom of her logic: “When we write by hand, we go slowly enough to record out thoughts with accuracy. On a computer, we whiz along, dashing our thoughts to the page.”
Continue reading on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog.
On Becoming the CEO of Fictionary
Welcome to my Second Acts Series!
Today, we have Canadian author and CEO Kristina Stanley sharing her remarkable life-long journey.
Here’s Kristina!
I’m very pleased to be invited onto Joanne’s blog to share my life-long journey of reinvention.
This is the story of how I went from a career in telecommunications to working in a ski resort to becoming an author to being the CEO of Fictionary.
I’m an author who loves to edit, and I believe today’s author must also be their own structural editor.
The difficulty with structural editing is the time it takes and the cost of an editor. So I asked myself: What if I could speed up the process, spend less money, AND write better fiction?
To answer these questions, I reinvented myself into the CEO of a software company.
What is the Fictionary?
Fictionary in an online tool that will help writers turn a first draft into a great story by becoming their own structural editor. It’s a serious tool for serious writers who are willing to evaluate each scene from a big-picture (structural) point of view.
With Fictionary, you can focus on character, plot, and setting. Fictionary helps you evaluate on a scene-by-scene basis or on the overall novel structure. Fictionary will show you the most important structural elements to work on first and guide you through the rewriting process.
Why a structural editing tool for writers?
Creating Fictionary began when I finished the first draft of my first novel. I just didn’t know it.
By then I’d read over 50 how-to-write and how-to-self-edit books. I’d taken writing courses and workshops and had 100s of writing and editing tips swirling about in my head.
I knew I had to begin the editing process and improve the quality of my draft before sharing my work, but I didn’t know how to go about it.
My Worries:
How was I supposed to remember the torrent of advice and apply it to each scene? A spreadsheet, that’s how!
I created a spreadsheet with a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene structure. Then I listed the different writing advice I needed to consider for EVERY scene. I ended up with over 75 “key elements of fiction”. I used the reports from the spreadsheet to visualize my novel.
Did Fictionary Work For Me?
After the hard work of self-editing and rewriting my drafts, the high quality of my fiction was validated when my first two novels were shortlisted for prestigious crime writing awards and I landed a two-book deal with publisher Imajin Books.
My first editor said: “If every manuscript was this good, my job would be so easy!”
The next exciting moment came when DESCENT, my first novel, hit #1 on Amazon’s hot new releases. Descent was published by Luzifer-Verlag in Germany, and I’ve sold the audio rights to Auspicious Apparatus Press. Imajin Books also published BLAZE, AVALANCHE and LOOK THE OTHER WAY.
Building Fictionary
I wanted to share my process, so other writers could benefit from an immediate approach to self-editing and rewriting first drafts. But who would want to use a spreadsheet? Perhaps a fun, fast tool that helps writers visualize and self-edit their novels would be better.
I joined forces with author Michael Conn and business specialist Mathew Stanley, and we formed a company called Feedback Innovations just to build this tool for fiction writers.
You can find out more about Fictionary at https://Fictionary.co
Advice For The Second Act
Like Nike says, “Just do it.” It may be intimidating. It may seem like hard work. But the satisfaction of starting something new is worth it. I believe anyone with a bit of grit can reinvent themselves.
What Writers Are Saying About Fictionary!
“I have used Fictionary to revise my current work in progress, entitled MindField, an espionage technothriller due out in early December 2017. My feeling is that Fictionary helped me to improve the manuscript significantly, and I will use it on all my subsequent novels. I am trained as both a novelist and screenwriter, but I focus exclusively on producing novels. And, that is where Fictionary is most useful. The toolbox within Fictionary helps a novelist see exactly where their work is weakest and strongest, and pushes me to work on fixing my problems.”
D.S. Kane, Amazon Bestselling Author
Turn Your First Draft Into A Great Story
If you enjoyed this blog, sign-up for our posts and receive a $10 discount coupon off your first month of using Fictionary.
Bio
Kristina Stanley is the CEO of Fictionary.co. Fictionary is an online tool that helps fiction writers turn a first draft into a great story.
She is the best-selling author of the Stone Mountain Mystery Series, LOOK THE OTHER WAY, and THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO SELLING BOOKS TO NON-BOOKSTORES. She’s published by Imajin Books and Luzifer-Verlag.
Her short stories have been published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Voices From the Valleys anthology.
Joanne here!
Impressive! Thanks for sharing and best of luck with all your future endeavors.
10 Things I Discovered When Researching 2006
I’m happy to welcome Soul Mate author Susan James to the Power of 10 series. Today, Susan shares her research and her latest release, Maybe This Time. I’ve read and highly recommend both of Susan’s time travel novels.
Here’s Susan!
When writing time travel, it’s important to know what existed when. My characters in Maybe This Time jump forward to 2006 hoping to mend a glitch in time. I choose 2006 because computer technology leapt forward in the five years between 2001 and 2006. But there were a few things I thought existed in 2006 that didn’t.
Here are ten things I can’t imagine life without today that began their existence in 2006 and 2007.
1. LCD Flat Screen TV. Technically these were “around” before 2006. But that was the year they were made affordable for people to buy commercially, and now they’re everywhere.
2. Facebook. While it was available to college students in 2004 Facebook opened its doors to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid e-mail address on September 26, 2006.
3. Twitter was launched in July 2006. The world embraced the service which allowed only short bursts of information of 140 characters or less. Twitter grew from 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007 to 500 million tweets per day.
4. YouTube was launched in 2005. Every day people watch some of the hundreds of millions of hours worth of content, generating billions of views. It’s physically impossible to watch every video uploaded to the site as it would take over 1,000 years. I have a YouTube channel for videos of some of my acting roles. Not all of them, because shows like American Horror Story do not allow you to post scenes.
5. The iPhone. Released in March 2007. I thought it was earlier. But in 2006 the most advanced phone was the Blackberry Pearl. Jen, my heroine can’t understand why anyone would name a phone after a piece of fruit.
6. The selfie. Obviously we couldn’t take selfies until someone invented the reversible camera. Selfies as a sport, didn’t become popular until the invention of the iPhone. This selfie, taken at the 2014 Oscars, momentarily broke Twitter.
7. E-Readers. The first Amazon kindle was launched in 2007 priced at $400 and was immensely popular, selling out within five and a half hours and remaining out of stock for months.
8. Small Independent Publishers and Self-Publishing. The demand for content for new e-reader opened up new avenues for authors. Not only did a host of independent publishers spring up, I am grateful that Soul Mate Publishing was one of them. New options for self publishing proliferated. I haven’t tried this yet because I am too chicken, but I’ve discovered wonderful books by self-published Authors.
9. Amazon Prime. I have had Amazon Prime since it started in 2005. For a flat fee of $79.00 I could have free two-day shipping. I added up what I had been paying in shipping for my bookaholic habits and decided it was worth it. Amazon Prime wasn’t launched in the UK where my heroine lives until 2007.
10. AirBnB. This alternative traditional hotels for short term stays and vacation rentals started in 2007. I’ve used it several times and I love it. In 2006 when Jen needed to find a short term apartment rental in Los Angeles she asked her waiter. (I always got my best apartment tips from waiters)
Blurb
Their Happily-Ever-After is over before it begins unless they can change time.
London 2001
Forty-nine-year-actress Jennifer Knight would rather eat worms than face her first husband. But when her niece Kat accidentally time travels them to 1988, she needs his help.
Computer guru, Lance Davies is more comfortable with machines than people. He never knew how to handle his beloved, mercurial Jen. But now her future self is here in front of him and he wants another chance.
Jen’s torn. Her traitorous body insists that home is in Lance’s arms, but her heart has trust issues.
Can two people whose timelines are thirteen years apart find a future where they can be together?
Author Bio
Susan writes second chance romances with a touch of magic as Susan B. James and children’s books as Susan J. Berger.She writes older heroines because she is chronologically gifted and enjoys creating characters who remember that change is only on the outside. Inside our older shells is a much younger psyche.
In her debut romance, Time and Forever, two women in their sixties inadvertently travel back to London in 1969. Time and Forever was a 2015 Golden Quill finalist for Best First Book and a 2015 RONE finalist for Best Time Travel Book.
Maybe This Time, the companion book, came out July 12, 2017.
Susan’s other career is acting. Last year, among other things, she killed Kathy Bates on American Horror Story. This she, among other things, she got stabbed by a pen on Future Man and played the victim on Major Crimes. Karma? Who knows what’s next. The joy is in the journey.
Where to find Susan James…
Blog (Adult Books) | Blog (Children’s Books) | Facebook | Goodreads
Where to find Susan Berger…
Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Website (Acting)
10 All-Time Favorite Books
I’m happy to welcome award-winning author Peggy Jaeger to the Power of 10 Series. Today, Peggy will share ten of her all-time favorite books and her new release, Passion’s Palette.
Here’s Peggy!
Joanne – thanks so much for having me on your blog today!
I think it goes hand in hand with being a writer that you are also, first and last, a reader. I read at a very young age and practically grew up in my local library. I was a latch key kid from the age of 8 on, so every day after school I went to the library until 6 pm. The library was so many things to me: refuge, a safe place to hangout, a world of knowledge, a universe of opportunity, my friend. My love of books is something I will carry with me until the day I leave this earth.
I read all the time. Even when I am writing—the time editors will tell you to never read anyone else’s works—I read. And I re-read. A lot. Below are my ten all time favorite books that I have read multiple times each. 9 are fiction, and the last is a writing reference tool that sits on my desk next to my laptop and is dog-earred, filled with notes and post-it’s and used daily when I am writing. I think these books define me in many ways – as a writer and a reader.
#1. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I read this when I was 10 and have re-read it once a year since then. I always find something new that I didn’t notice before when I re-read it. By today’s standards, this book could be considered racist. I tend to look at it as a timeless love story between two hard-headed people. Rhett and Scarlett were meant for each other and their love affair just happens to take place during one of the most horrific time periods of our country.
#2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This book is the reason I am a romance book lover. I read it for the first time when I was 11 and even though I had a hard time with the period language, I knew it was a story for anyone who looks for love to triumph over social class, economic differences, and societal quirks.
#3. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. Talk about a great love story. When it first came out it was banned by the Catholic Church, so, since I am a Catholic, of course I had to read it. Strip the religion from this book and you’ve still got a love story for the ages and a book that is so beautifully lyrical the way it is written, it is a joy to read.
#4. New York to Dallas by JD Robb. In truth, I love all the IN DEATH books, but this one is the only one that made me cry, actually weep tears, at the love between Eve Dallas and Roarke. In one of the final scenes, Lt. Eve Dallas has just had a knockdown, drag-out fight with a serial killer. She’s battered, bruised, and a little loopy from the painkillers they’ve given her. She’s speaking to her good friend Dr. Charlotte Mira, with Eve’s husband – the panty-dropping Roarke, in the background.
Eve says: “Want to finish, give my report. Is my face messed up? I hate when that happens. Not like I’m pretty or anything, but—”
“You’re the most beautiful woman ever born,” Roarke said from the doorway, and Eve sent him a woozy, drugged smile.
I just cried writing that!!!
#5. French Silk by Sandra Brown. I would read a book about the alphabet if Sandra Brown wrote it, but FRENCH SILK was one of the few books that ever kept me guessing right up until the last page. That rarely happens for me. A cast of characters that were delicious to read about and a past story/plotline that knocked my socks off. Truly, a fabulous read.
#6. Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. The first romance I read that actually had SEX for all to read about and experience. Woodiwiss opened the bedroom door and thank goodness she did! Still a classic love and romance story to this day. So richly written and described.
#7. Domina by Barbara Wood. There are very few books out there that take the time to not only be historically accurate, but give you a kick ass bunch of heroines in the mix. This book was about female doctors, practitioners, and healers, what they went through and how they were treated throughout history by their male counterparts. It’s a timeless book, as powerful to read now as it was when it was first released.
#8. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The story of a family going through the worst thing they can – a child’s illness. But it is so much more. Picoult has woven a complex story that deals with not only a parent’s heartache, but the right to choose death on your own terms. She mixes medicine, the law, and family struggles so seamlessly, you don’t even realize the important themes and undertones in the book until that last page.
#9. Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts. Her first book. ‘Nuff said!
#10. The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. I read this book every single day I am writing. Heck, I even refer to it when I’m not writing because it is such a valuable tool for understanding human behavior.
For the purposes of full disclosure here, Joanne, I could have easily given you two dozen more books!
Thanks so much for inviting me today to talk to your readers. I hope I’ve offered them some food for thought to try a writer that maybe that haven’t yet.
Blurb
Talented and witty portrait artist Serena MacQuire is successful in everything but love. Her gift for capturing people on canvas is rivalled only by her fiery and legendary temper. A tragedy from the past keeps her heart securely locked away, preventing any man from getting close enough to claim it.
But Seamus Cleary isn’t just any man. After he left his professional football career to become a veterinarian, his bitter wife ended their marriage. Now, as he starts his life over in a new town, love is the last thing he’s looking for. The more he tends to Serena’s horses, though, the more he realizes her own heart needs tender care and healing as well.
Will he be the man who finally unlocks and claims her heart?
Excerpt
Their eyes met and Seamus registered the silent “O” of surprise on her mouth.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” he said, drawn to her as an errant moth would be to a ghost of moonlight. “Addie told me you were out here.”
Serena reached over to her sketchpad, open at her feet, and closed it with a flick of her toe. He was rewarded with a lengthy view of thigh as she stretched.
“Working?”
“Doodling, mostly. I wanted to do some preliminary sketches for a commission I have.”
“Mind if I sit?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, did.
When he reached for the pad and said, “May I?” she shot her bare foot on top of it.
“Sorry.” Serena reached over and grabbed the book. When it was safely tucked behind her back, braced against the tree, she added, “I’m a little schizoid where my work is concerned. I don’t let people see it when it’s in the planning or beginning stages.”
He looked across at her, lifted one brow slightly, then glanced around. “This is nice,” he said. “Quiet. Peaceful.”
“Private.”
A fist of pure desire punched him in the stomach, the muscles contracting in response to the challenge in her eyes.
“Was there something you needed to see me about?”
He considered her again, before replying. For someone so young she could act as regally as the most aged dowager.
And she was young; much younger than he was. It wouldn’t do to start anything with her. Besides, she was a client. He had to keep it professional.
But dammit, those eyes speared right through him, impaling him with their beauty, and were hard to ignore. As was the gentle swell and shift of her breasts with each breath beneath her barely modest halter top. And her legs, well, just forget about those. Legs like that were destined to be his downfall.
Buy Links:
Bio
Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.
Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all topics of daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.
Tying into her love of families, her children’s book, THE KINDNESS TALES, was illustrated by her artist mother-in-law.
Peggy holds a master’s degree in Nursing Administration and first found publication with several articles she authored on Alzheimer’s Disease during her time running an Alzheimer’s in-patient care unit during the 1990s.
In 2013, she placed first in two categories in the Dixie Kane Memorial Contest: Single Title Contemporary Romance and Short/Long Contemporary Romance.
In 2017 she came in 3rd in the New England Reader’s Choice contest for A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS and is a finalist in the 2017 STILETTO contest for the same title.
A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, she is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.
Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com
A Writer’s Fate
I’m happy to welcome Soul Mate author Michelle Jean Marie. Today, Michelle shares her inspiring 20-year journey and new release, Tempting Fate.
Here’s Michelle!
I’ve never had trouble writing. Even in grammar school, my papers and stories were always longer than the teacher assigned. Perhaps I can attribute that to my dad, who used to read to me and my siblings at bedtime. Listening to Arabian Nights and Little Women, I lived in those stories and never wanted them to end. So I began to write my own.
In high school, my friends and I started writing fan fiction before there was such a thing. Does that date me? We had our favorite television shows, and would write our own episodes – usually with ourselves as the beautiful heroine or woman in peril. Then I picked up The Flame and the Flower and my life was never the same. I became hooked on romances – historical romances. It’s a good thing Barbara Cartland was such a prolific writer. I could finish one of her books in a day. And although her books were nothing like Kathleen Woodiwiss’s, they took me to places unknown and taught me history at the same time.
I was a columnist for my high school paper during this time and won awards for my writing. In senior year, I took a creative writing class, much to my mother’s chagrin. After all, that meant I couldn’t take Spanish III Honors. I knew my priorities as a teenager, didn’t I? But I was writing! That was much more fun than studying Spanish.
Unfortunately, creative writing fell by the wayside through college and the early years of my marriage. Again, those priorities! Then when my daughters were young, I attended a romance writer’s workshop at our local library. From there, I learned about Romance Writers of America. I joined the Chicago-North chapter and never looked back. I learned what serious romance writing was – not just silly fan fiction. Who knew I shouldn’t head hop? Or that every chapter ends with a hook? Or that the first few sentences would determine whether or not finicky readers kept reading to the end? I was reading it, but I never knew the craft.
My first completed novel was Destiny Defied, which after many critiques and rewrites, became Tempting Fate. I was thrilled when Tempting Fate finaled in the Golden Heart Contest of RWA in 1997. We made the family trip to Orlando and had a blast.
Although the book made the rounds in the publishing world, it wasn’t until 20 years, several more manuscripts and a writing hiatus later that Tempting Fate found a home at Soul Mate Publishing. To complete the circle, the RWA conference is in Orlando again this year. I won’t be attending with family in tow this time, but the timing must be FATE.
Blurb
A Woman Ruined
Scorned by society for past indiscretions, Lady Alanna Clayton instead dedicates her time to improving the lives of orphans at the workhouse. When Alanna realizes their futures are in danger, she vows to protect them, no matter the means.
A Man Wounded
Lieutenant-Colonel Kellen Harrington, Marquess of Aldwich and future Duke of Wilkesbury, abandoned his responsibility for a career in the cavalry. He fled a life of abuse for a life of war. A dire summons brings him back to London and the estate he swore to never set foot on again.
A Secret Shared
Childhood friends, Alanna and Kellen are bonded by an old secret and fate reunites them to keep another. But in trying to save others’ lives, have they put their own in danger? Deceit, blackmail, and revenge challenge their every step as they navigate the dark alleys of London. And traverse the corners of their hearts.
Can Alanna tempt fate and save Kellen from his biggest danger – himself?
Excerpt
“What in hell?” Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Aldwich mumbled as his body slammed against the tufted leather of the carriage. Pain fired up his leg and through his lower back. He gripped his left thigh, breathing deeply to relieve the pain. “Dash this London traffic!”
He had not missed the insanity these past ten and one half years. Regaining his posture, he snapped the window down. He leaned out, hearing his coachman shouting at the apparent cause of the disruption. It wasn’t traffic.
He peered into the haze, watching two slight figures rise unsteadily. A young woman stood first, answering the coachman’s admonition with a frigid stare. She seemed to be nineteen or twenty, and better outfitted than the scruffy lad with her. Bonnet askew, she quickly put it aright.
When his coachman ceased his tirade, she launched one of her own. “Are ya daft? Could ya no’ see us?” She switched her attention to the boy, brushing tears off his face with the corner of her cape. “Wha’ are ya doin’ goin’ so fast on a night like this ‘un?”
Aldwich winced at her dreadful cockney accent, an apparent, but poor, attempt to hide her upbringing. He squinted, trying to see her better. Not that he would recognize anyone after all these years.
He studied the young woman and her small companion. A more ill-matched pair, he’d rarely seen. Her wool cloak and velvet bonnet bespoke quality, yet the ragamuffin didn’t seem old or refined enough to act as her escort.
“Are you hurt?” Aldwich asked.
The girl’s head spun toward him. She shoved the boy behind her and inched backward. “No, guv’nor.”
Yet even as she said that, the lad cried out. “You’re bleeding!”
The colonel barely heard the words as the brougham pulled abreast of the near-victims. The vision in the street had engrossed him. A pair of clear blue eyes, framed in a heart-shaped face, stared back at him from the gloom. A flicker of a distant memory passed across his mind, and with it, the pain of the past. He forced the recollection down. “You might take more care in crossing the street next time,” he said as he handed her his handkerchief.
“As yah mi’ take care ta slow down,” she retorted as she touched the kerchief to her cheek. Then turning, she hastened her retreat.
The colonel bristled and sat back. The impudent chit disappeared into the shadows of the alley. As she vanished, a lock of silvery-blonde hair escaped her bonnet. Inhaling sharply, he connected that unmistakable hair with two cerulean eyes. And a lifetime ago. Starting, he signaled for the coachman to proceed. “Your imagination is running away with you, Aldwich,” he muttered to himself.
Bio
After years of working in the Health Information Management field, Michelle became a stay-at-home mom to raise two adorable daughters and took advantage of her time at home to pursue a life-long passion—writing.
While attending a romance writing workshop at a local library, Michelle was hooked. She cracked open the research books, turned on the computer, and started cranking out historical romances. In her early efforts, she was an RWA Golden Heart finalist and winner/finalist in many RWA sponsored contests.
After ending one marriage, seeing her daughters through college, opening her own business, and finally happily marrying her soul mate, she opened those old computer files and did some serious editing. She signed her first publishing contract with Soul Mate Publishing more than twenty years after writing it. Perseverance does pay off!
Michelle lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Steve, and their three insane pups. Their two-legged children have all moved on to their own homes and careers. By day, she runs a professional organizing business, a virtual assistant business, and a research web site. Her favorite clients are authors!
By night, she writes. She self-published Researching the British Historical: The Victorian Era, 101 Organizing Tips for Writers, I’m Moving!! Now What? and Nine Journeys: Stories of Women Who Found Their Own Paths to Success.
For more information about Michelle and her endeavors, find her at:
Web Site | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Keeping Cool…On a Budget!
At least once each summer, I treat myself to a Dairy Queen banana split. And each time, I try not to gasp at the “new” price. In 2017, a DQ banana split costs $7.00 (CDN). Like everything else, Dairy Queen treats have risen in price.
Glancing at the menu board, I mentally calculated the minimum and maximum amounts a family of four could easily spend on a Dairy Queen excursion. If they all selected banana splits, the cost would be $28.00 (CDN). Four small dipped cones would ring in at $12.60 (CDN). These expenses could add up if summer temperatures soar and humidity levels become unbearable.
Continue reading on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog.
Joanne Guidoccio 