Sebastiana Randone's Cast of Distinctive Characters @sebasti29567440 #Fantasy #Romance

When first conceiving my characters for The House, I took myself back to the many fairy tales I had read as a child, and channelled some of the creatures and folk prevalent in those classic stories. By thinking of them as archetypes, I created a beastly and dipsomaniacal Lord, an analogy to the predatory wolf, a sensitive Lady powerless to find her true calling, an essence of the damsel in distress, and a troupe of personages that one never reads about in novels written during the (regency) era my book presides in. Such as is the diverse cast that inhabit my book; transvestites, homosexuals, rent boys, courtesans, poets, and of course a time traveller, to name some of this disparate ensemble.

Menacing gargoyles, half man/beast manifestations, another borrowing from the classics, clasp the walls of the house, while in  contrast, and most unexpectedly, the interior is adorned by cherubim, goddesses and friendly hard to define souls, whose animated amiable eyes follow in sympathy. Upon the face of it, the beasts ‘guarding’ the ramshackle house symbolise unknown and potentially perilous encounters within. The accidental visitor is left with very little choice for shelter however, for the forest whilst enchanting, has an impending darkness that only wolves and predators revel in.

With a narrative that takes the reader into the Georgian and Regency periods, I purposely created players that I had never met in the books of Jane Austen, nor of those of her contemporaries.  While the dramatis personae in ‘The House’ have walked the well trodden path of humanity, social mores of periods past would most certainly not have approved.  This was the distinction I enjoyed exploring. Despite the fact that I worked diligently to give them a voice that belonged to that particular era, the aspiration was to write a story that portrayed a familiar humanity. I have been a passionate reader of classic novels for a long while, and the stories that engage me most profoundly are those that present a psychologically complex society. Regardless of the departure from reality that this fantasy novel affords, my aim was to fashion recognisable characters that have travelled throughout time.

The House is an adult fairy tale rich in mystery and intrigue.

Here is a tale of a woman so absorbed with historical novels that her own reality ceases to offer any hope of romance and beauty.

Until one day this dreamy idealist finds herself in a mysterious forest. How she arrived there is unknown. Soon she encounters a dilapidated house, within whose ancient walls magical rooms that transport to parallel worlds lie in wait.  There she is transmigrated to 18th century England, where our heroine interacts with an odd mix of characters whose dysfunctional lives become immediately apparent.

Her first tribulation involves a nefarious lord, an archetype of the monstrous characters one encounters in fairy tales. The ramification from this confrontation sets the tone for the narrative.

A magic portal finally enables escape from the austere Georgian dwelling. She is then spirited back to the enigmatic house, and a journey to Regency London follows, where a large cast of eccentric identities present themselves.

Late one night, following a long stay in Florence, a young, heart-broken poet arrives. His introduction to the beautiful time traveller offers promise of restoration and love. But there are several more obstacles ahead before her destiny in this curious adventure is made apparent.

In the end an unexpected twist is revealed. But like all good fairy tales, this surprising conclusion is pleasing, even though the means of getting there are dark, and at times sinister.

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Genre - Historical, Fantasy, Romance

Rating - PG-16

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@Marie_McKean on Her Favourite Things & Writing #Paranormal #AmReading #AmWriting

Do you find it hard to share your work?

Absolutely. Someone once told me that he thought it would be easier to stand naked in the middle of rush-hour traffic and sing in Japanese than to share his story with others. I completely agree. When you write something, you cannot help but leave a part of yourself interwoven with the words. So when its put out there for people to either love or hate it can at times feel like a personal attack. That said, you’ll never know if you never try.

Is your family supportive? Do your friends support you?

My husband is very supportive. I couldn’t do any of it without him. And there are a few friends I could never keep writing without. I guess I couldn’t keep going without any of the people I have in my life that I do now.

Do you plan to publish more books?

Yes! I have a new YA series that I will be releasing soon, as well as the sequel to Born of Oak and Silver called Born of Ash and Iron that will be released in October 2014. In addition, I also have a few other stories that HAVE to be written, so I’ll be getting to those as soon as I can.

What else do you do to make money, other than write? It is rare today for writers to be full time…

I am fortunate enough that I get to be a mother and not have to work. My time is completely focused on my family. Writing is a hobby. I’m just lucky enough to have a husband that doesn’t mind me spending money to make that hobby as good as it can be.

If you could study any subject at university what would you pick?

Anthropology, Mythology, and Folklore. My interests lie in people and the traditions and stories that shape who they are. I’d love to do a masters degree in any of those emphases someday.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

Montana. I’ve always found it so beautiful, and I love the space that it offers. I try at least once a week to convince my husband that that is where we should be living.

Tell us about your family?

I am happily married to a man who makes me laugh everyday, and have three wonderful children who are both the bane and light of my existence. I don’t think I could live without any of them. I also have a dog, Huckleberry, who is my comrade in everything. Really, I have the greatest life. I’m lucky.

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?

I write on my laptop, but always have a pen and paper handy for those random ideas that come around and must be written. I’ve written entire chapters before using a notebook and pen, but of course, if I could choose between the old-fashioned way and my laptop, I’d choose my laptop.

How much sleep do you need to be your best?

Not much. I can usually do just fine on 6 hours a night; but only for a period of time. I will crash eventually and sleep for 8-10 hours for two nights and then will be back to 6 hours again.

Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge and thank for their support?

My husband, you rock my world. Emm, HP, Toni, Andrea, you guys are the best! Katy and Weston – Best. Editors. Ever.

Every writer has their own idea of what a successful career in writing is, what does success in writing look like to you?

If I can make one person feel the way I hope my writing does, than that’s a success. If I get more than one, well, that’s even better.

YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE LIFE YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN.

All that you can do is make the most of what you’ve been dealt—fight a good fight, resist being beaten by circumstance, and hope that somehow, despite it all, you’re able to accomplish the impossible.

But even then you cannot change the fact that you were born cursed.

I am one of those unlucky few upon whom the Curse of the Four Fathers has fallen.

It is I who must bear the burden of having a life that is unchangeably intertwined with the Fae. A sorrow made all the more great by knowing that where they are tragedy, loss, misery, and despair most assuredly follow.

As a Druid it is my responsibility to uphold the boundaries that keep the worlds of the Tylwyth Teg, and our own, separate. As a man it is my only ambition to protect the family and woman I so desperately love.

The only problem: I’m not sure this curse will allow for me to do both.

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Genre - Paranormal Fantasy, Horror

Rating – PG-13

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Website https://www.mariemckean.com

Olga Soaje's TWELVE HOUSES #AmReading #Contemporary #Women

Since You’ve Been Gone

Stay with me.

Don’t fall asleep too soon.

The angels can wait for a moment.

—Westlife, “Written in the Stars”

You promised you would never leave me. Thirty-five years ago, I looked you directly in the eye and heard, “I will never leave you,” as we stood next to the ocean. And now, like a thief in the night, you go. No last words, no promises, no tears.

As I look back at that moment, I can still feel your hand intertwined with mine, each finger between mine, like an oyster shut tight against the sea, protecting the treasure it carries inside. But the treasure was in my belly, full of love and expectations.

We walked like tourists along Pier 59, a place we came to think of as home. Wind in our faces and a carefree spirit in our hearts. Gently you stopped and pulled my hand so I would follow suit as you turned; I could see your eyes full of love and complete devotion. I felt I could stay in that moment forever. It was this feeling, this sublime happiness, that I did not want changed or challenged. That’s when I turned to you and looked into those blue eyes as I said aloud, “I don’t want this to change.”

Your face distorted into a concerned expression as you tried to reassure me. “It will be different when the baby arrives; it will be even better.”

“It’s not that. I’m excited about meeting the baby and having it with us.”

So you poked at the subject with concern on your face, as you asked, “Then what is it? What don’t you want to change?”

“Us,” I answered blithely, taking in a large whiff of air through my nose as a source of strength for what I was about to request of you. As I looked out to the sea right in front of us, I said, “I don’t want to forget this feeling. I want to always feel this love and peace between us.”

You gave me that dimply smile. “We will always have it. And when we don’t, we will have the direction in which we want to go.”

As a sea gull passed close to us, landing in the water with a tiny splash, I looked at you and finally said what had been on my mind, the deep seed of this conversation. “I don’t want to lose you.” Once again, your easy laugh, followed by an enveloping hug, while you gave me the grin I’d come to realize meant, You’re hormonal. “I’m serious. Just promise me…”

Can anything good follow the best thing that ever happened to you?

Amelia Weiss loved her husband of thirty-five years very much, but now he’s left her a widow. Without him, she is unable to work in her sculpture studio without crying. She no longer has a bridge to her estranged daughter. And she can’t seem to keep her mind in the present.

But when her daughter reaches out asking for her help and her agent threatens a lawsuit if Amelia doesn’t deliver for an upcoming exhibit, she’s forced to make a choice. Will she reengage with her life and the people in it—allowing room for things to be different than they were before? Or, will she remain stuck in the past, choosing her memories over real-life relationships?

Thrust fully into the present, Amelia stumbles into a surprising journey of self-discovery.

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Genre – Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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SEASONS' END by Will North by @WillNorthAuthor #Contemporary #GoodReads #Women

That afternoon, over drinks on the porch, Colin watched Tyler. Knowing him as he did, he had expected an anxious jauntiness, a mix of groom’s day-before jitters and Tyler’s characteristic bravado. Instead, his friend seemed oddly subdued. Colin put it down to tennis exhaustion initially, but as the afternoon wore on, it seemed to him that his friend was like a man in slow motion, slogging as if through hip-deep mud, not toward the matrimonial altar but toward execution. A dead man walking. Colin put himself in Tyler’s place: if he’d been about to marry Pete, he’d feel only elation. 

He’d be over the moon. But would he ever have put himself in Tyler’s place? Would he ever have asked Pete if she loved him, asked her to marry him? No, it wasn’t his place to do so. It would never be his place. He was not one of them.

After dinner, in a spasm of traditionalism, Pete banished Tyler from her sight until the morning’s ceremony. It was bad luck, she said, for him to see her again until she was in her wedding gown, approaching the minister—her own father—on the arm of old Adam Strong, Tyler’s uncle.
As the dishes were being cleared, Pete appeared at Colin’s side.

“I need a walk on the beach. Will you come?”

“Of course.”

She smiled and took his arm.

The two of them sloshed along the tide line for a while in companionable silence. To the west, the sun had dipped behind the fir-clad hills and the cobalt blue sky began fading to the color of robin’s eggs. 

Across the outer harbor and beyond the low hills of Maury Island the almost iridescent white cap of “the mountain,” as everyone here called towering Mount Rainier, had turned the color of pale Spanish sherry. All around them the visible world seemed to slip from three dimensions to two, the low hills flattening to a navy blue screen.

Colin finally spoke. “You okay, luv?”

Pete squeezed his arm against her side and smiled but said nothing.

A little farther on, looking out across the darkening water, she said, “It’s what was meant to be. All along. This is where it’s all been going.”

“This wedding?”

“Well, marrying Tyler, anyway.”

“You act as if it was inevitable.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say?”

She paused. “Preordained. I think that’s what I’d say…preordained.”

“As in, not a choice?”

“As in part of the plan, part of the natural order of things.”

“I never took you for a fatalist.”

“I’m not.

“Then…?”

“Life is what you’re given; this is what I’ve been given.”

“That’s bullshit. Life is what you make of it.”

To his surprise, she giggled.

“What?”

She hugged his arm again. “If I’d been given as little as you were, I’d believe life was what I made of it, too. But I have had a certain degree of privilege, haven’t I?”

“With no mother and an absentee father?”

“No, with the interwoven safety net of the Petersens, the Strongs, and, to a lesser extent, perhaps, the Rutherfords, not just here on the beach but in town, too. We’re like a tiny galaxy, held together by our own form of gravity. That’s part of what draws Tyler and me together, what keeps us together.”
 
“The weight of history?”

“No. Or at least not just that. Something else, but I think it’s related We are known to each other. Do you know what I mean? I think everyone, deep down, longs to be known—truly known—to someone. 

There is such a comfort in that. I think that’s the foundation of love. Tyler and I, we’ve always had that.”

Colin wanted to argue with her, but there wasn’t any point. He’d never pressed his case and this wasn’t time to start. He nudged the conversation off on a tangent.

“If that’s the case, what’s up with Tyler this afternoon? Where’s the dazzled groom?”

Pete said nothing for a moment. She used the soles of her feet like paddles to spray seawater out ahead of her as she walked through the shallows. Finally, she spoke.

“I think it’s his mother. She’s not coming.”

“Mother? He’s never said a thing to me about his mother.”

“No, I don’t suppose he would have.”

“Meaning?”

Again, silence.

“Tyler’s dad, Richie Strong?” she said finally. “He was a famous pilot.”

“So he said, but he’s never told me much about him, either.”

“He seldom does. But I will. You deserve an answer. Tyler’s dad was something of an aviation hero. Went to Billie Boeing’s flight school down in Oakland before the war. He was maybe twenty. Came home with a commercial pilot’s license and a wife, Amanda James. She was a secretary at the school; I don’t think she was even eighteen yet. American Airlines, which was only a couple of years old, had already heard about Richie from Boeing and they snapped him up.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. And then, in World War II, the president of American Airlines, a guy named C. R. Smith, was made head of something called the Air Transport Command. Their job was to ferry planes filled with equipment and soldiers back and forth across the Atlantic. Tyler’s dad was one of the first pilots Smith commandeered under the war powers. Apparently, Smith already had Richie on his radar screen. Tyler’s uncle…”

“Old Adam?”

“Yeah, well Old Adam told me Smith used his brother for all kinds of top secret missions. One story is he took General Mark Clark, who was tight with Eisenhower, deep into North Africa to oversee the campaign against Rommel there. The plane he piloted was flanked by a dozen fighters.”

“Impressive.”

“Yeah. Old Adam’s crazy about his kid brother. It’s very sweet. Anyway, after the war, Richie went back to American Airlines. He was already one of their most senior pilots and he was only thirty. Flew for them from then on, from prop planes to jets. Then he was killed.

“What, he crashed or something?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Oh, man…”

“In a car.”

They’d reached the far west end of the beach, where the sand gave way to sharp, barnacle-encrusted rocks. When they turned, they could just see the tip of Rainier, above the hills across the harbor, glowing as if aflame.

“For years,” Pete continued, “everyone said it was an accident; Richie was driving his car, a convertible, too fast. Hit a telephone pole. Nineteen sixty-two.”

“Shit. All those years in the air and he dies on the ground. That’s so ironic.”
“And wrong.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“No, I mean it didn’t happen that way.”

“What?”

“Tyler’s father killed himself.”

Colin stopped and stared at her. “Jesus, Pete!”

“It’s all about Amanda.”

“Tyler’s mom?”

“I got this from Old Adam, after several bourbons, okay? Tyler doesn’t know I know. Please don’t say anything.”

“Okay. Promise.”

“Old Adam and his wife Emily made room for Richie and Amanda at the beach house, right here, after they’d married. Emily was the only daughter of Silas Wolfenden, the founder of Wolfenden Industries, the timber giant, and Silas gave Adam and Emily the land here on the beach. Silas had cut all the timber decades before and it was all new growth then. Old Adam’s got a big heart; he built the smaller Strong beach house next door to his own for his brother and Amanda. But Emily never trusted Amanda. Figured Amanda had seen that Richie was going places and just latched on to him for the ride.”

Pete paused and looked out over the darkening water.

“And?” he said after a few moments.

“And she was right. American Airlines based Richie in Chicago. Richie was gone a lot, building a career, and Amanda landed a job as a stewardess. For the next ten years they both flew, though not together, and put off having kids. Adam said word was Amanda was a quite a party girl. In 1950, when Amanda was twenty-nine, Jamie was born. But she didn’t settle down.”

“Okay, I’m not following here. I thought they were married a long time. They had two kids.”

“Yeah, Jamie…”

“And Tyler.”

“Right, but Tyler came along much later, when Amanda was nearly forty.”

“And Tyler’s father killed himself? I don’t get that.”

“Old Adam told me his brother Richie came home early from a trip, found the house empty, Jamie with a sitter, and went looking for his wife. Found her at her favorite bar, right there in their neighborhood outside Chicago. She was wrapped around the bartender. Not the first time, either. 

Richie turned around, climbed in his car, headed out fast into the countryside. Police figure he drove straight into that pole. Died instantly. Or maybe he really died back at the bar, you know? I mean, how can someone who has a kid commit suicide? I think some part of them has to be dead already to do that.”

Pete had stopped, and, reflexively, Colin put his arms around her. She did not withdraw.

“Man; that must have been hard on Tyler.”

Pete pushed away and continued walking.

“Tyler wasn’t even born yet. He came along eight months later.”

“Wait. Was Richie even Tyler’s dad?”

“Good question.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“He believes he’s Richie’s son, the son of a hero and flight pioneer; it’s Amanda who doesn’t know.”
“Shit.”

“She swears he is. Problem is, as Old Adam tells it, the math doesn’t work. Richie couldn’t have been the father; he was away, flying.”

“This is tough.”

“But Amanda wasn’t done.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It wasn’t enough for her.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Having a dead hero for a husband. She wanted a son who was a hero, too. She wanted a fucking parade of heroes, if only to put the spotlight on her mothering instead of her adultery.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“It’s simple; when Richie died, she pushed Jamie to live up to Richie’s legend. The kid joined the Marines first chance he could, got sent to Viet Nam, and was so gung-ho he’d already been made a company commander by the time they sent his unit to Khe Sahn. The battle of Khe Sahn, which was at the end of his tour, was a bloodbath. A week before he was to be discharged—he already had a Purple Heart by then—Jamie dug a hole, climbed into it, and issued orders to his company from it. He didn’t want to get shot just days before going home.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah, except he took a direct shell hit instead. Nothing left of him but the dog tags.”

“Jesus.”

They were now nearly parallel to the Petersen compound. Pete stopped and looked at her friend.

“So Amanda drilled it into Tyler that he had two heroes to live up to, his father and his brother. And she never let him forget it.”

Every summer for generations, three families intertwined by history, marriage, and career have spent “the season” at their beach cottage compounds on an island in Puget Sound. Today, Martha “Pete” Petersen, married to Tyler Strong, is the lynchpin of the “summer people.” In childhood, she was the tomboy every girl wanted to emulate and is now the mother everyone admires.

Colin Ryan, family friend and the island’s veterinarian, met Pete first in London, years earlier, when she visited his roommate, Tyler. He’s loved her, privately, ever since. Born in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, son of a bar owner, he’s always been dazzled by what he sees of the sun-kissed lives of the summer people.

But this summer, currents strong as the tides roil: jealousies grow, tempers flare, passions clash. Then, on the last day of the season, a series of betrayals alters the combined histories of these families forever.

As in previous novels, The Long Walk Home and Water, Stone, Heart, with Seasons’ End, Will North weaves vivid settings and memorable characters into a compelling tale of romance and suspense.

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Genre – Women’s Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website willnorthonline.com

Belinda Vasquez & Her Horrific Booksigning Experience @MagicProse #Suspense #GoodReads

I was going to Phoenix one time with my husband for a reunion. Why not kill two birds with one stone, to use an old cliché, and set up a book signing? I had just published my first book, a kid’s chapter book.

I called up a Barnes and Noble store in Scottsdale. The store manager was too nice. “Why don’t you come up the month after instead? The store always declares that day as Teachers’ Saturday. It is a month before school starts, and the store gets very crowded that day. Teachers’ Saturday is always the very best time for a kid’s book signing, and we would love to have you. Your book looks so cute and educational.”

“But I’m in the area the month before. I’ll have to make a special round trip of 840 miles a month later.”

“We give the teachers a discount that day. I’m sure they will all want to buy your book to read to their classes. In the flyers to the schools, I will mention your signing.”

I cupped the receiver and told my husband excitedly. “We should go twice to Phoenix. She has assured me that I will sell a zillion books. Blah! Blah! Blah! Kiss. Kiss.”

There were hotel costs, restaurant bills, and gas, so I also booked a Borders book store in Tempe, and a Barnes and Noble in Tucson for a two-day whirlwind book tour. The store managers were all very nice, and said they would order my books for the signings.

We survived my husband’s reunion and a month later we were back in the Phoenix area.

On Saturday at the book store in Scottsdale, I sat there for two hours and about five people came into the store.

“I just don’t understand it,” the manager said. “I sent out all the flyers. I am so sorry no one has bought your book.”

I leaned over the banister, scanning the lone person in the store browsing the aisles. None of the five customers had even come upstairs to the children’s books.

“Here, let me buy a copy,” the manager said and yanked out a ten dollar bill.

I signed the book; my time was up; and we drove to Tucson.

The signing went better there.

The next morning on our way out of town, we stopped in Tempe for a few hours for my book signing. I had called up a cousin to let him know I would be at Borders and given him the address and time.

I waltz into the store, singing. “I’m here for the book signing.”

“What book signing?” the manager said.

“I set one up several months ago. Remember? I spoke with you.”

“Uh. Duh. Flubber. Drip drop. Sorry.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I told my husband.

On the way out of the Phoenix area I said, “Did you notice no one was at Borders? That store is really screwed up; I’m surprised it stays in business.”

The last thing Miranda ever expected was to see her brother’s ghost at the fallen Twin Towers.

It’s bad enough survivor Christopher Michaels scares her with claims that if one dies violently, his ghost will haunt the place that holds his name. And to top it all, one of those thousands of ghosts follows Miranda to her hotel. The only certainty is the ghost grabbing her under the covers is not Jake.

Their parents’ deaths separated Miranda from Jake when they were kids. Michaels insists Jake brought them together and it’s no coincidence that of thousands mourning at Ground Zero, it’s his best friend she bumps into. Some best friend. Michaels is more like a moocher. The cheapskate never has money, just a blood-stained wallet he broods over. Miranda has no choice but to hang out with the weird Michaels in order to unravel her brother’s past.

As Miranda spends time with Michaels, she begins to wonder who he really is. Against her better judgment, Miranda becomes emotionally entangled with Michaels, a bitter alcoholic with a secret linked to her brother and that blood-stained wallet.

I Will Always Love You is part mystery, suspense and romance, a novel that will keep the reader turning the pages!

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Genre – Suspense, Mystery, Romance

Rating – PG

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Website http://belindavasquezgarcia.com/

Forty 2 Days (The Billionaire Banker) by Georgia Le Carre #Erotic #Romance #AmReading

In the lift I raise my eyes to meet his.

Fuck.  What the hell?

The door whooshes open.

He takes my hand and drags me behind him.   Opens the door and pulls me through, and leaning back against it tugs me to him so I fall smack onto him.  My purse finds a quick path to the carpet, opens its guts, spills.  His hot mouth finds mine. The kiss is rough, crazy intense, and full of urgent need.  It is what I saw in his eyes.  I go astray.  I don’t want to come back from this.  His hand locates the zip at the back of my neck.  That hapless zip flies down and the nun’s habit pools around my shoes.

His hands expertly release the clasp on my bra.  One tug and it is gone the way of the dress.  I am so lost in the jaws of desire that I barely hear the sound of light lace tearing.  Once again, I am naked and he is fully dressed.

For a moment he holds me at arm’s length simply looking at me, the way he used to do in the beginning.  Then he takes me to the gilded mirror on the wall.

‘Look at you,’ he snarls.  ‘Your pupils are searching for someone to pleasure you.  Anyone would do.’

I want to back away from what I see.  My eyes are glazed with lust.  I look…hungry, feral…electrified.  Yet he is wrong.   Anyone would not do.

He strokes my heated cheeks then he bends his head and his strong white teeth nibble at my earlobes.  ‘Cream and sugar and venom,’ he says and bites my neck.

In the mirror my eyes widen with shock and pleasure. The sensation is exquisite.  The rush of it makes me feel reckless.  He begins to gently suck my skin.  I moan.  His mouth moves to my nipple.  The skilled precision of his mouth starts an aching that travels into my core.  I am in a sex-induced frenzy thirsting for him to enter me.  The taste of true desire is sweltering.  I push my ass into the thick, hard snake between us and yearn for it driving inside me.  He puts a finger on my lower lip and lets his finger enter my mouth.

‘Suck it.’

I take the finger between my lips and suck it gently at first, and then harder.  He starts to unbuckle his belt.

I get on my knees.  The carpet digs into my skin.  I open his fly, pull up his shirt, and kiss that hard, tight stomach.  He becomes very still.  My tongue flicks out.  Tentative, but not for long. I lick the golden brown skin, find the line of fine hair and follow it all the way to the elasticized band of his shorts.  My teeth grasp the material and pull.  His cock springs free and hovers, swollen and angry over my mouth.  I take the throbbing ready meat in my hand.  The head swells, surges, pulses, and comes alive in my hand.

I use both my hands to quickly pull the briefs down his thighs while my mouth takes in that gorgeous, rock-hard cock.  I look up at him and watch him draw his breath sharply.  Slowly, I move forward and let him witness every inch of his dick sliding between my lips.  He pulses in my mouth and that pushes me into sucking greedily at the head of his erection.  I devour him, taking him deeper and deeper into my mouth.

He thrusts his hips forward, jamming himself down my throat.  It makes me gag, but it still feels right.  His cock should always be inside me.  It is where it belongs.  Anything else would be wrong.  I am struck by the potency of my obsession.

Beyond the seductive power of immense wealth lies... Dark Secrets

Devastatingly handsome billionaire, Blake Law Barrington was Lana Blooms first and only love. From the moment they touched his power was overwhelming. Their arrangement quickly developed into a passionate romance that captivated her heart and took her on an incredible sexual journey she never wanted to end.

The future together looked bright until Lana made a terrible mistake. So, she did the only thing she could... she ran.

Away from her incredible life, away from the man of her dreams, but she should have known a man such as Blake Law Barrington was impossible to escape. Now, he's back in her life and determined that she should taste the bitterness of his pain.

Shocked at how rough the sex has become and humiliated that she is actually participating so willingly in her punishment, she despairs if she will ever feel the warmth of his touch--the solidity of his trust again? And even if she can win his trust, loyalties are yet to be decided, and secrets to be revealed--secrets that will test them both to their limits.

Will Lana be able to tear down the walls that surround Blake's heart, and break him free of the brutal power of immense wealth?

Can Blake hold on to Lana's heart when she discovers the enormity of the dark secrets that inhabit the Barrington family?

Lana has always believed that love conquers all. She is about to test that belief...

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Genre – Erotic Romance

Rating – PG-18

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Jessica Dall's #WriteTip on Powerful & Believable Characters #AmWriting #HistFic

When it comes to writing, I have always been a “character-driven” author. If you don’t have a good plot, of course it’s a problem, but I fully admit that it tends to be the characters that make me interested in writing a particular story rather than the plot (sometimes I’m not even entirely sure what the plot is going to be when I start out since I don’t tend to care for outlines).

Leaving the characters in charge of powering the story, however, makes building believable characters all the more important.  So how do you do that?

1.       Work out a backstory

No character exists in a vacuum. Just like you didn’t magically appear one day fully grown (I’m assuming…) your character has likely has some past that affects the person they are today. While you should certainly avoid info dumping (overwhelming your reader with a bunch of backstory that they may or may not need to know all or once) you, as the author, need to know what makes your character tick. Have they had a great sense of humor since they were a child? Did they learn it from a friend? Is it a reaction to having a very serious family? The answer may not matter to anyone else, but it will help you shape the little things about your character which turn them from ‘Character A’ to a real person.

2.       Use Character Questionnaires sparingly

All right, this comes down to if you find them helpful or not, but Character Questionnaires have only been passingly helpful for me in the past. They are great for getting the basics down, like what your character looks like or if they have siblings, but is thinking about what my character’s favorite ice cream flavor is really going to help make them real? If questionnaires work for you, go for it. You just might be better served working outside a form (I personally like writing in paragraphs when it comes to the basics) or using other character-building techniques.

3.       Take your characters out of your story

Dialogue has always been my strength so I might be biased here, but one of the best ways I have found to develop a flat character is to take them out of the actual story, and throw them into a strange situation. How would Character A take it if she was suddenly stuck in an elevator with Character B. How would Character B act if he was out couch shopping with his mother? Without having to worry about where the story is going, the characters are free to talk to one another and generally interact with the world, which can give you some great insight into everything from their speech patterns to past relationships.

4.       Let your character lead

This one doesn’t happen to everyone, but sometimes well-developed characters get a little headstrong. If you find yourself writing and all of a sudden a character decides that they actually don’t really like a character you meant to make their best friend/significant other, let them make the change. It’s a good sign your character is developed enough to react to a situation as their own person—forcing them back to what you originally were planning will often suddenly shatter the little things that make them a “real”, believable person.

Adela Tilden has always been more ambitious than her station in life might allow. A minor nobleman’s daughter on a failing barony, Adela’s prospects seem dire outside of marrying well-off. When Adela catches the eye of the crown prince, Edward, however, well-off doesn’t seem to be a problem. Thrown into a world of politics and intrigue, Adela might have found all the excitement she ever wanted—if she can manage to leave her past behind.

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Genre – Alternate Historical Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://jessicadall.com/